Switched
by catsncritters
Summary: SLASH - When all of Hogwarts' occupants have switched bodies, how can you really know who to trust?
1. Chapter 1: A Mild Introduction

I'm writing a new story for ffn! I know, isn't it shocking? Heh heh... I really need to finish the one I started months ago.... 

**Title**: Switched  
**Author**: catsncritters/Adrienne Wolter  
**Rating**: PG, doubtful that it will go up any higher  
**Warnings**: SLASH between two male characters who have very different ages. If you do not know what SLASH is, I doubt you want to be here reading this.  
**Summary**: AU because of book five. A plan of Voldemort's backfires and changes everyone at Hogwarts to a different person, slowing his plans. Harry, changed into Blaise Zabini, falls for Severus Snape, without realizing it. Meanwhile, he also saves the day. Whoo! (And, of course, this is pretty general because that's pretty much all I know for sure, heh heh....)  
**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and his universe belong to JK Rowling, I'm just playing around. As for the characters, I do not plan to introduce any original characters (what's the fun in that?). As far as I know, I'm the only author who's used the plot of Voldemort changing everyone in the castle to different people, but I could be mistaken. I'm not trying to tread on anyone's ideas, if I am, sorry!

The beginning of this is really, really rushed and kind of unclear... maybe when I finish it (when? That makes me sound determined, wheee...) I'll go back and rewrite it, but you'll have to deal with this short introductory chapter first, sorry! I suck at beginnings, but it will get better, I promise!

Chapter One

.~*~.

The entire Great Hall was tangibly silent.  
Harry didn't realize immediately what was wrong. There had been an explosion, a blur, and dust had flown up from nowhere, apparently. The doors had all been flung open, but there were no intruders.  
The only thing he noticed was that he was at a table decorated in Slytherin banners.  
Then he realized that in his hands he held not his wand, but a longer, off-white one.  
Then he noticed his hands.  
But they weren't his. He glanced over at the Gryffindor table for Ron, but the Ron he knew by sight was also staring at his hands, turning them over and over again, disbelieving.  
What had just happened?  
Obviously, everyone had been put into a new body, but... for how long? He gulped back a rising feeling of sickness in his stomach.

Beside Harry, Goyle stood up on the table, shouting for everyone's attention. He needn't have shouted; no one was talking anyway. Neville then ran across the Hall to Goyle, with more clumsiness than normal, trying to take longer strides than his short legs enabled him.  
Neville and Goyle whispered to each other. Harry caught phrases like "half-finished wards" and "Dark Lord." Goyle cleared his throat.  
"It seems that everyone in this room has changed bodies. This was a plan by Voldemort which did not work; intended to do something to all of us, it changed our bodies instead. No, I do not want to know who you are. And I don't want you to tell anyone who you really are. You are to keep your identity a secret. The wards have bought us time, but we must use it as best we can."  
Goyle, who Harry assumed must be Dumbledore, broke off at a commotion at the Ravenclaw table. Whoever was in Padma Patil's body had discovered her makeup mirror, and was waving frantically at Goyle/Dumbledore.  
There was another minute of thick silence before Dumbledore smashed Padma's mirror on the table, inspecting the shards carefully. Harry thought he heard someone down his table gasp.  
"...And if you see any mirrors, I want you to smash them. I don't care how you do it, but smash them. Make them disappear. Anything.  
"I ask you to please find your way to your quarters for the house you are now in. If you don't know where they are, ask Neville or I. I have disabled the passwords for the next ten minutes. Tomorrow, be here at breakfast so we can discuss what we do now."  
He seemed to be finished, so Harry racked his brain for a memory of the whereabouts of the Slytherin common room, then set off. He heard Pansy Parkinson calling the Slytherins to follow her to the common rooms from behind him, so he decided to fall back into the crowd instead of set off on his own.

Once all the new Slytherins were inside the house, Pansy told everyone that the password was 'billywig,' then told them to go to their rooms. Harry, having no idea whose body he was in, waited around until all the other Slytherins had dispersed, then approached her.  
"Who am I?" he asked bluntly. Pansy raised an eyebrow, something which looked very unpracticed on her face.  
"Blaise Zabini. You're in 7th year. Last door on the right up the left staircase."  
Harry followed her instructions and found himself in a room with Malfoy and Crabbe. Or people in the bodies of Malfoy in the Crabbe. Harry grumbled, this was making his head hurt.  
"Oh my god!"  
Having just collapsed into the bed with 'Zabini' carved onto it, he peered through the green curtains on his four-poster.  
"Lavender?"  
Harry's ears perked up. Lavender-Draco was staring into a mirror on the wall.  
"Smash the mirror!" he yelled to them, and they both jumped. Crabbe kicked it, and shards of the mirror would have flown everywhere, had Lavender-Draco not cast a freeze charm on all of it.  
It was pretty much silence after that; Harry automatically reached to remove his glasses and felt queasy when they weren't there; he undressed and got into Slytherin pajamas, finding that he was wearing Slytherin boxers. Then he climbed back into his overstuffed Slytherin four-poster, only to have to get back out and run to the toilets in an adjoining room to throw up his dinner.  
This was not going to be easy.

.~*~.

Feed me reviews, I'm hungry!


	2. Chapter 2: The Real Zabini

SQUEE! 14 REVIEWS! WHOO!!

*Clears throat*

I'm pretty happy, lol. This chapter will clear up the confusion with the mirrors (sorry I didn't say about that last chappie... heh heh) and introduce a new plot element (well, that's the plan, anyway...). I decided that I'm going to refer to every character (except for Harry) as the body that they are in, because if I say, for example, Lavender instead of Malfoy (that's one of the switches, if you didn't already notice), you think of a mental image of Lavender instead of Malfoy. I followed through with that through all of the chapter, expect for a few parts dealing with Blaise Zabini. I'll mention who they really are once in a while though. More thinking for you and less for me, nyah! :P

**Warnings**: SLASH between two male characters who have very different ages. If you do not know what SLASH is, I doubt you want to be here reading this. Also, this chapter has... dun dun dun... a cuss word. If you don't tolerate that sort of thing, make like you were never here.  
**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and his universe belong to JK Rowling, I'm just playing around. As for the characters, I do not plan to introduce any original characters (what's the fun in that?). As far as I know, I'm the only author who's used the plot of Voldemort changing everyone in the castle to different people, but I could be mistaken. I'm not trying to tread on anyone's ideas, if I am, sorry!

Thank you everyone who reviewed:

**BURN THE R.U.M** - Yay, my first reviewer for this story! *Offers cookie* Thank ye!   
**LeeLeePotter** - Lol, here's your next chapter. To answer your question, yes, they are gender-mixing, just not all of them. o.O  
**blodeuwedd** - You'll see!  
**Elizara** - Thankies! :D  
**Kyra Invictus Black** - Thanks!  
**Prophetess Of Hearts** - I'm not sure. I'd connect the visions to Harry's mind, and the scar aches to his body, so if they do become a part of the story, it would probably affect both Harry and the person in Harry's body.  
**Arili** - Thank you! You made my day, lol. Yep, a lot of people aren't going to heed Dumbledore's warning, and also yup about the mirrors... am I too predictable or something? Hehe, hope not. ^^" And... the left staircase is the girls' dorms? Whoops... erm... maybe for Slytherin they're backwards... yeah....  
**Lady Doncaster** - You'll see! :D  
**Sylvester**, **jagoianeye**, **PainIsPurification**, **excessivelyperky**, and **penny** - Thanks! :D  
**Hollywood Recycle Bin** - You'll see who's in Harry's body eventually, I'm not telling yet, lol. I do describe what Blaise looks like in this chapter, sorry for the rushed chapter one!

Let's go!

Chapter Two 

.~*~.

Harry awoke by reaching for his glasses on the bedside table, freaking out when he could see without them, and falling out of the foreign bed onto a cold stone floor.  
Shakily, he got to his feet and looked around before what had happened all came back to him in a rush. He ran a hand through his hair to find neat locks that fell softly to just behind his ears.  
He stumbled past the other three four-posters, in which two Slytherins were still asleep, into the bathroom he had found yesterday.  
The room blazed to life the moment he entered, and he discovered that across the room were two mirrors and sinks. Rubbing his eyes in disbelief, he looked into the mirrors to find not Blaise Zabini's reflection, but his own.  
So this was why Dumbledore wanted them to break the mirrors. "_Impedementa_," he muttered, pointing Zabini's wand at each mirror, which both cracked. His reflection became Zabini's and he raised an eyebrow at the face he saw now in the mirror. He'd seen the boy around, but had never really talked to him.  
His hair was a hay-colored shade of brown, his eyes a cold, dull blue. Zabini's eyelashes were long, and he was less muscular than he was string bean thin. In fact, he was really lanky in appearance. Harry grumbled, left with the impression that Blaise Zabini looked more like a girl than a boy.

After taking a shower, which took a considerably short amount of time since he didn't like the feeling of Blaise's skin, and dressing in a set of Slytherin robes he'd found in Zabini's trunk, he returned to the dormitory to find it empty. With a haste inspired by this, he sprinted through the common room, past a gloomy Pansy Parkinson drinking coffee on a couch, and out into the corridor.  
Realizing he was wearing socks instead of shoes under his robes, he grumbled and transfigured them into what felt like half-sneakers, half-sandals. _Maybe I really should have listened to Hermione and payed more attention in Transfiguration...._  
He started towards the Gryffindor table in the silent Hall, then switched directions and headed, instead, to the Slytherin table, where he moodily sat on the end across from a very shabby-looking Malfoy, one of the only places left. Deciding he didn't need to see Malfoy's face across the table this early in the morning, he slid over on the bench, next to some 5th year he'd seen in the halls once or twice. She looked like she wasn't a good one to cross at seven in the morning.

"Now, students and teachers," Harry jumped at the voice coming from down his table. Goyle was on top of the bench, trying to make the syllables make sense with the deep, grunting voice. "I know you're going to hate this, but please listen. We will be continuing classes like normal, and your teachers will be teaching you as well.  
"This means that the people in the teachers' bodies, no matter who they are, will be teaching. I will be holding a meeting with each of them alone and will be giving them instructions. All the people now in student's bodies will be learning."  
Pansy, having heard a few of the last sentences as she'd been walking through the Hall to her seat, grumbled and took the only seat left, across from Malfoy.  
"I must also remind you that you _must break the mirrors_, there are many mirrors in the dormitories and I want you to break all of them. As long as you at least crack them, they will no longer show your true reflection. As I'm sure you've learned in your History of Magic classes, reflections in certain materials will always the truth, no matter how a witch or wizard is disguised, unless they are broken. The mirrors here happen to be of one of these materials, and Voldemort will try to make use of this situation by using them to find your true identity.  
"After breakfast I would like to see whoever is in Mr. Potter's body. You may eat now."

Harry looked at the food in front of him. It was identical to the food on every other table, but looking at it made him feel queasy, again. He knew he'd have to eat at some point, that this wasn't a short-term change and he'd have to make the most of it. But it just felt wrong. His own body was squeezed into this lanky one, he felt vulnerable to attack with a different wand, and he felt unattached from his parents and friends. He was unattached from his parents and friends.  
Standing up abruptly, wanting to stop these thoughts which were haunting him, he left the Hall at a brisk walk. He trailed down unfamilar stairways, down further and further until he reached the dungeons. Turning a corner, he ran straight into Snape, who instead of menacingly glaring at him and telling him to watch where he was going, apologized profusely, helping Harry off the ground and babbling. Harry would have enjoyed this immensely had the students and teachers not changed bodies. As it was, Harry thought that whoever had taken up Snape's body sounded like a Hufflepuff.  
After finally escaping Sorry Snape, Harry followed corridors in circles until he found a blank stretch of wall which opened when he said 'billywig' to it. He dawdled around in the common room for a few hours, watching the small fire in the marble fireplace or just thinking. When the clock chimed eight times, he went upstairs, having missed dinner.

Once inside, he found a cross-legged Crabbe attempting to meditate on one of the beds. Harry, trying to ignore it, went to his four-poster, undressed, and got into the Slytherin pajamas that he'd flung over a lamp when he'd dressed only that morning.  
"Who're you?" Crabbe asked, still cross-legged and with closed eyes. Harry jumped, having all but forgotten that anyone else was in the room.  
"Probably not someone you know," Harry lied. He guessed it wasn't that great to let anyone know his real identity if Voldemort was still looking for him. My, knowing whose body Harry was haunting would certainly speed up the find-and-destroy process, wouldn't it?  
"I see," was the reply. "I really don't feel the need to not let people know who I am. What would the Dark Lord want with me, should he be trying to find Harry Potter? I'm certainly not involved with either side. Most Ravenclaws aren't."  
Harry frowned and sat up in his four poster, watching the still form of Crabbe breathing. Meditating must be relaxing.  
"If people know who I am, I can find my friends. After all, Dumbledore seems to be setting us up for more than a day or so of this, doesn't he? Would you want to go without friends for as long as he's preparing us for?"  
For a moment, Harry was silent, considering. "No," he answered finally.  
"You don't want to go against Dumbledore though, do you?"  
He shook his head before remembering that Crabbe couldn't see it with closed eyes, even if there was light in the room. "No," he repeated.  
"Okay," Crabbe answered, slowly getting out of his position and opening his eyes, turning and sitting on the side of his bed, facing Harry. "I'd be willing to be friends with you even if you don't want me to know who you are. I'm Padma. Can I at least know your first name if I don't know you?"  
Harry, disbelieving, shook his head automatically. _This_ was Padma? She sounded a lot more intelligent than her sister or than she had sounded at the Yule Ball when Ron hadn't danced with her.  
"Okay," Crabbe repeated, smiling. "Can I at least know what house you're actually in, since I told you mine?"  
"Gryffindor," Harry answered, deciding that it wasn't going to reach Voldemort if this was Padma.  
"You sure I don't know you?" Crabbe tilted his head, burly shoulders dropping.  
"I'm sure," Harry lied.  
"Alright then," Crabbe replied, and fell back onto his pillows. Harry followed suit.

Sleep did not find him easily. In fact, it avoided him at all costs. Shivering, Harry stole the quilt off of Goyle's bed when he heard a distant clock chime two'o'clock. He'd never realized that the dungeons got so _cold_ at night....  
At seven in the morning, Harry watched the silhouette of Crabbe through his curtains, getting out of the next four-poster, stretching, and pouring himself some water from a pitcher next to a wall scone. He went into the bathroom for a shower.  
Harry groaned and pulled himself to the edge of the bed, and forcing himself to fall out so he'd wake up quicker. He was left with a bruised elbow and more exhaustion than before.  
He stood up and stumbled over to his trunk and pulled out a new set of robes which a house-elf had cleaned and folded for him. Pulling it out, it caught on a leather-bound, silver-edged book which clattered onto the stone floor.  
Harry's exhaustion drained away as his curiosity grew. Maybe this book was important to the actual Blaise Zabini.  
He turned the book over in his hands, looking for anything indicating its contents on the outside. Somewhere behind him the shower turned off. He vaguely remembered Ron talking about books which did very bad things to people, and he had no intentions of getting stuck reading a book forever....

Curiosity overriding worry, the book was opened and Harry looked at the title page. The words _Fighting the Dark Arts_ popped out at him, and he flipped through the following pages.  
The contents of the book were only on even-numbered pages; every right-hand side page was covered in spidery handwriting. Passages were circled, points were underlined, and some things were starred.  
What was a Slytherin doing with a book that went against the Dark Lord?  
The bathroom door opened and Harry slammed the book shut and dropped it into his trunk, tucked it under another set of robes, and locked his trunk. Crabbe didn't seem to have noticed anything peculiar; other than a brief glance at Harry and the chest as he passed, he didn't do anything about it. Harry went into the bathroom for a shower.  
Stripping, Harry realized something he hadn't noticed yesterday. He looked into the cracked mirrors, looking for any sign of it, but it wasn't there.  
Blaise Zabini had no Dark Mark.

As he tramped a now near-familiar path to the Great Hall, Harry thought about the pros and cons for himself in particular of Zabini having no Dark Mark.  
For one thing, he wouldn't be called to Death Eater meetings, a very good thing. But if Zabini didn't have the Mark yet, it didn't mean he _wasn't_ going to get it. There was no way in the world that he'd be getting a Dark Mark while Harry was inhabiting body, no way....  
And what about that book, _Fighting the Dark Arts_? If Zabini was _fighting_ the Dark Lord, that would make him vulnerable to attack, making him stick out among other Slytherins. Malfoy would know if someone in his own dorm did not have a Mark....  
Grand.  
He seated himself at the Slytherin table, feeling eyes upon him. He looked up and down his table, then looked to the Gryffindor table.  
Ron was watching him very closely. When he saw that Harry was looking his way, instead of glancing away, he narrowed his eyes coldly.  
Crap.  
An evil smirk formed under his eyes, and Harry's own eyebrows rose at this. Harry finally looked away, but still felt the eyes on him long afterward.

"Classes will resume tomorrow," Goyle announced when everyone had taken a seat at their table. "I expect all of you to be on your best behavior for your teachers. Neville is handing out schedules."  
If everyone hadn't switched bodies, this would be greeted with a lot of chatter. As it was, there was only a small mutter here and there.  
"On another note, all outgoing owls and their letters will be scanned for any mention of our present situation. The floo network will be monitored and students caught out-of-bounds, that is, out of the castle before seven-thirty in the morning and five in the evening will be serving detention with Professor McGonagall for a week. I know this is restricting you, but it is for the safety of every one of you.  
"We are all on one side now. The spell that was skewered by the wards was meant to kill every one of us, Voldemort's followers and all. He claims to reward you when you join his ranks, but it's all a cleverly-disguised lie. He cares as much about your lives as he cares about ours."  
There was silence. Harry, as if in a dream, watched his body nod silently to Dumbledore's words. He wondered who had been put into the dangerous position of playing him, to be the golden boy. He would've felt sorry for them if he had the heart, but in his current condition, he really didn't.  
And his eyes again trailed over to Ron and jumped; he was still looking at him with the same expression. Harry made a mental note to avoid running into Ron at all costs.  
Having some toast and bacon, Harry momentarily forgot his problems. This rush of relief ended very abruptly when he stood to leave and Ron stood too.  
"Crap."  
Several Slytherins looked up at his none-too-quiet word, including Malfoy, who had just showed up, two first years, Pansy, and a curly-haired sixth year.  
He looked straight at Ron, ignoring his onlookers, and seated himself again. Ron did the same. Crabbe and Malfoy were looking at him with raised eyebrows.  
"Hey, Blaise, what's up?"  
It was Crabbe. Harry shook his head. He wasn't really sure what Ron wanted and who he was, but he had some guess that he was the actual Blaise Zabini.  
"Nothing...."  
Crabbe followed his eyes to the Gryffindor table, but didn't speak. Soon, Malfoy lost interest and started talking to a third year down the table.  
"Someone watching you?" Crabbe asked. Harry grumbled at Padma's persistence.  
"Yeah, I guess."  
"Then get company to go back to the commons with you. I'll go if you want, I finished a while ago."  
Harry looked at Ron a last time with defiance. "That'd be great, thank you."  
They both stood and Harry saw Ron rise from his seat as well. Only stopping to grab their schedules, Harry and Crabbe left quickly.

"Yo, Zabini! Wait up!"  
Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds before turning around to face Ron Weasley.  
"Just ignore him," Crabbe muttered, but too late; Ron had a hand on Harry's shoulder and was steering him to an empty classroom. He shut the door and turned back to him, standing in front of him with the same smirk he'd shown in the Great Hall. After a few seconds of this, Harry got annoyed.  
"What?"  
"Who are you?" It wasn't a question, it was a demand.  
"A better question would be who are you," Harry retaliated, frowning.  
"Unless you're a complete dimwit, I think you know who I am. Now, who are you?"  
"You're the real Zabini then?"  
"Duh. Who. Are. You?"  
"You're against Voldemort?"  
The real Blaise Zabini was silent for a moment, until he said, carefully, "you found the book then?"  
"Yeah, this morning." Harry said, suddenly feeling somewhat more powerful in this conversation.  
Ron sighed heavily. "I supposed you would. Now you know, I'm not about to go shouting your name to the Dark Lord or anything. Can I please know who you are so I can tell you what to do when Dumbledore makes us act?"  
"Harry Potter."  
"Holy shit," Ron said, backing up a step. "Great, now I'm in even more danger than I was when _I_ was in my body."  
Harry gave a dry laugh. "Yeah. Right. What do you want?"  
"Okay," Ron started. Harry could see that he was thinking quickly to find good instructions. "My father is a Death Eater, or was. Now he's a traitor and I'm not sure if they've killed him or what." Zabini did not seem phased by the possibility at all. "The Dark Lord will eventually come after me because I am his heir and he needs a punching bag. I do not want to stick out in any way, so if you make me a target..." he made a gesture which caused Harry to wince. "Be the wallpaper, ok?"  
"Fine," Harry replied. Ron opened the door very suddenly and peered out in both directions. Seeing no one, he left.  
Harry made to take a step, and tripped forward onto his face. Untying the shoelaces that Ron must've spelled together while talking to him, he exited as well. _Seems like Slytherins will always be Slytherins_.


	3. Chapter 3: Lunch with a Slytherin

Whoo hoo! Up to 32 reviews!

Sorry this chapter took so long. FFN wouldn't let me upload it for the past week and a half. :S

Some notes about this chapter:  
-The dates are right, I do believe... using a perpetual calendar to get the days of the week for 1997. The goodness of technology. Sorta.  
-I know nothing about caffeine headaches and, anyway, they were exaggerated (I think... lol) for the purpose of the magical world. And we can assume magical caffeine is made at Hogwarts. (Is coffee even that common a drink in Scotland?) Magical caffeine, come one, come all - still addictive but cures caffeine headaches immediately...?  
-I'll work the light in the dark into the plot later, I promise [read: hope].  
-Yes, we don't know anything about Blaise Zabini except that he's a Slytherin in Harry's year - so I'm free to embellish! For the purposes of this story he's a he, in case you didn't notice or something.  
-Haha, I'm writing this and thinking, "Wait, that's out of character!" but you don't KNOW what's out of character since you don't know who the OOC peeps are until later chapters! Muahaha! *Coughs* *Scratches head*

The characters we know of are (body - person IN body):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall (or I've at least tried to imply so... freebie I guess?)  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
I think that's everyone.

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Ayelet**, **excessivelyperky**, **penny**, **BURN THE R.U.M**, **Ellavira** (...O.o...), **Enahma**, **Mystic Moon6**, **elseedy** (thanks! And... gah, bad mental image there, lol... and I was thinking about adding that to the plot, but if they changed the passwords to the common rooms, I dunno if they'd be able to get back in there.), **Severus Snape** (Thanks. I do tend to speed things up a bit too much when writing. --"" I'll try and keep it more naturally-paced.), **LeeLeePotter**, **Cally**, **falling-alone**, **Kyra Invictus Black** (thanks for suggesting listing the characters, otherwise I might be the only one making sense of this, lol... gah, I guess putting Neville in his body is a bit too obvious, isn't it? I had plans in mind to write a little sidefic describing Neville's thoughts about it.), **pixyfairy120**, **Hayley**, **Arili** (heh, yeah - tried looking up the name Blaise and it came up as both a guy and girl name. Oh well. And you'll find out where Hermione and Draco 'landed' sooner or later, I'm hoping to work a lot of characters into this mess. *evil laugh*), **Ronandchicken** (yay I'm on a favorites list! Woot, mon! Anywho, the killing thing didn't work because... er... Voldemort's henchmen are stupid? ^^" In my prewrite of this it was skewered by the wards set up around the castle, but I kinda cut that part out, except for a teeny mention of it by Dumbledore.)

Onward!

.~*~.

Chapter 3

The common room was mainly empty, housing only an odd mix of first, third, fourth, and sixth years playing a game of exploding snap and talking amongst each other, Crabbe with his head in a book (something Harry never expected to see once they got changed back), and a brooding Millicent Bullstrode who stared into the tiny unlit fireplace. He walked straight past them all and returned to his room to go over his schedule and brood until lunch.  
Harry plucked his schedule from beside the four-poster which he then fell into, rolling over and holding the schedule close to his eyes. The small writing was rather hard to read... and the handwriting looked familiar, now that he thought about it. Hmm.  
He strained to think of the date. Today was... Tuesday. October seventh. He looked at Wednesday's classes.  
Divination was the first one recorded. _I switch bodies and still can't escape her class_, Harry grumbled. After that was Charms, lunch, Care of Magical Creatures with Gryffindor, and History of Magic.  
Funny, he had never really noticed Blaise in his Care of Magical Creatures classes. He wasn't much more than wallpaper, when he thought about it. There, but not really.

He was getting a headache. Dropping the schedule in his trunk, he returned to the common room, which was pretty lifeless. Crabbe was still reading, Bullstrode was still glaring at the flames in the hearth as they licked at the firewood, and Parkinson was drinking coffee and reading the Daily Prophet.  
Coffee looked good. Very good. Harry sat down with Crabbe, who looked up.  
"What'd Weasley want?" he asked him, and Harry shrugged.  
"Tried to figure out who I was. I figure he might be one of the real Zabini's friends or something."  
"Ah." Crabbe returned to his book.  
There was a pause, during which Harry stared at Parkinson's coffee longingly. He hadn't known that Zabini needed caffeine in the morning. He wondered absently why he hadn't needed some previously.  
"Where did she get the coffee from?"  
"Why are you asking me?"  
"Mmm."  
Harry crossed the room and stopped in front of Parkinson, who looked up at him irritably. "Get out of the light."  
Stepping sideways, Harry asked her about her coffee, and she shrugged it off. "Go ask the house elves for coffee. They'll be more than happy to give it to you."

So that's where Harry was found to be, five minutes later. The house elves didn't really notice him when he entered, though. He felt like he was stuck under an invisibility cloak. It wasn't enjoyable.  
The cloak. The map.  
Whoever was in his body had probably discovered them by now. He would have to take a midnight stroll to the Gryffindor tower to get them back, he told himself.  
"Dobby!" He called over the elf who was wearing a maroon sweater and happily fixing food for lunch. The elf looked up and blinked, smile erased.  
"What does master Zabini seek?" he asked, putting a large, fake grin on his face.  
Harry wanted to tell the elf that he wasn't Zabini, that he was the elf's idol, but decided against it. Dobby might babble it off to someone else.  
"Could I please have some coffee?"  
The elf looked unnerved, and took a minute to fix it before bringing it back. Usually all the elves brought food over immediately, but they didn't seem very fond of his current body.  
"Thank you."  
The elf was silent, standing there, waiting for more instruction. Harry gulped down the warm liquid despite the fact that it burnt his throat, and felt the headache subside somewhat.  
"Thanks, Dobby," he said, handing the coffee cup that he had emptied in record time to the elf. He left without further word, walking pretty aimlessly down corridors and peering out the occasional window. He saw a large number of students outside in the almost-chilly autumn weather, hopping in piles of leaves and circling the lake. Hermione was out there, and so were others who weren't really themselves. Padma Patil. Luna Lovegood.  
He felt a twinge of regret that he felt he couldn't tell anyone who he was. He wanted to find Ron and Hermione. It looked kind of hopeless.

During lunch, he sat out at the lake, leaning against a boulder while chewing toast. It was a little cold, but very peaceful, and almost made him feel like things were normal.  
_Ha. That was a strange thought. When are things ever normal at Hogwarts?_  
"May I join you?"  
He turned and looked over his shoulder, and saw that Parkinson had felt the lake was perfect for lunch as well.  
"Er... sure," Harry answered.  
Pansy seated herself on the somewhat-sandy bank of the lake, about a meter away. She looked out over the calm surface of the lake as she sipped her coffee.  
"Nice out here," she said simply. Harry noticed that she was rubbing her arms. Maybe it was a little colder than he thought.  
"Sorta cold."  
"Uh huh."  
_This is awkward._  
"I'm guessing you're new to Slytherin," Pansy said after a while. "Most Slytherins despise Zabini, but they know who he is."  
_Huh?_ "Yeah... that's right," he answered, tossing the remainder of his toast out to the squid. It was amusing to watch a great tentacle come out and grab it. "I'm not going to tell you who I am though, if that's what you want to know."  
"Gryffindork." Harry looked over to see Pansy's smirk.  
"Slytherin."  
"What's insulting about that?" she asked with a small hint of indignance.  
"Everything," Harry replied, grinning. He put his hands behind his head and looked up at the cloudy autumn sky.  
They were silent for a few more moments. Neither really wanted to be the first to say anything.  
"Days without classes are boring without my friends," Harry noted idly.  
"Then find them."  
"It's appealing, but I think I'll find them eventually. What about you?"  
"Slytherins don't need friends."  
"That's kind of sad," Harry replied, an eyebrow raised.  
"It's what makes people who have them weak."  
"Not always."  
"How would you know?"  
Harry thought carefully about an answer to that question. "They've only helped me so far." Pansy tried to skip a rock across the lake, but it fell in after the first skip. She sat back, shivering.  
"I'm going in," Harry told her, and she nodded and walked beside him. When they reached the common room, Harry sat with Crabbe, who seemed considerably farther in his novel.

"Lunch with Parkinson?" he questioned, bookmarking his place and looking up at Harry in amusement.  
"Yeah," he answered. Crabbe had an expression which said, 'I know something you haven't realized.' "What about it?"  
"Oh, nothing in particular. Just be careful while we're different people. Don't set up anything negative for when we switch back. Karma and all."  
Harry blinked.  
"Okay...."  
"Yep." Crabbe reopened his book and kept reading.

Harry longed for Quidditch talks, games of exploding snap, and other things that Ron would do with him. He also found himself wanting to hear Hermione nag him about homework. However, he was currently isolated. Unless he wanted to read. The only book he had that wasn't a schoolbook was _Fighting the Dark Arts_. He wrinkled his nose.  
Somewhere a clock chimed. He pulled on a thread on one of the pillows. He imagined pulling that thread until the entire pillow shriveled very suddenly and goose feathers poofed over everyone else in the common room, but the thread came out and ended up only being a few centimeters long.  
He stood and exited. Not really sure where to go, he headed in the general direction of the owlery. Maybe Hedwig would recognize him.  
The windows of the owlery were boarded up. Instructions were scrawled on a paper in a navy blue ink... something about bringing owl and letter both to one of the teachers listed. He looked for Hedwig, but found that he couldn't recognize her among the other snowy owls.  
_Maybe I'm losing my mind._  
"Hedwig?" he tried. Several owls looked over, but only one hooted. Yes, there she was–but she didn't know that he was himself.  
"Hedwig? It's me."  
The owl hooted again and flew to his arm. She nipped his ear. _She_ recognized him.  
"Just wanted to visit you," Harry said awkwardly. "How are the owl pellets?" He laughed nervously.  
Hedwig seemed to settle down on his shoulder, leaning against his head. Harry patted her, then let her get back in the rafters and left, unsure of what to do before dinner. He slowed his wandering pace too look out a window. It was beginning to rain. He followed a narrow crack in the window with a finger, then walked to another window. The darkness reflected his face–not Zabini's, his.  
This surprised him. Why had no one cracked this window like the rest? Had they forgotten it?  
He knew it was right for him to crack it–but he wanted to be himself again. He stared at his reflection longingly, before he saw the light outside.  
_No one should be out when it is this dark, right?_ He wondered if it was after five. The wand tip stopped and seemed to hold still a minute before it kept walking. Walking away from the castle... towards what? He couldn't tell what direction this window faced. He wondered suddenly if people on the outside of the window could see him–Harry's reflection–through it. He sighed and cast a small charm which cracked the window just like the other ones. Harry faded away and Blaise Zabini swam into view.  
Five bells chimed. _Now_ it was too late to be outside–but the wand tip, lit up like a star in the darkness caused by the storm, kept moving. Floating away.  
Harry shook his head and decided it didn't concern him. He wandered around for about an hour and finally reached the Great Hall and settled for scanning to see who wasn't there.

The Gryffindor table, which he was familiar with, seemed fine. No one was missing from it. He scanned his own table–_no, the Slytherin table_–and couldn't remember who was supposed to be there.  
He sipped from his goblet, expecting pumpkin juice, but choking when he tasted coffee. It was scalding hot, and burned his throat which had been expecting chilled juice. But when he tasted it, he realized his head was throbbing and drank more. He hoped that his body wouldn't get addicted to caffeine.  
Another glance at the Gryffindor table and he saw that Ron's eyes were again on him, and he glared back. Not again. He ate his dinner slowly. His eyes were again drawn to Ron's, who pointed upwards. Harry looked up.  
And choked. Apparently, the Great Hall's ceiling was one of the reflective surfaces Goyle had mentioned.  
"What's wrong, Blaise?" Crabbe looked upwards as well. "Oh."  
"Tell Dumbledore," he muttered in his ear, and Crabbe nodded and the message was passed down the table to Goyle, and all the students in between had looked up and either been panicked or unphased.  
Goyle looked upwards as well, and seemed tired. Then he stood and told everyone to take their dinner to their common room, even as cramped as it would be, and then Harry was in his–no, Slytherin's–common room squished between some first years miserably trying to eat.

The night was fitful. He rolled around in his cold four-poster in the cold dormitory in the dungeons under the school. He stole Goyle's quilt that night, burrowing underneath and trying to make it warmer by breathing out warm air, but even his breath was cold.  
He gave up before dawn, tramping down to the common room. He had expected to find himself alone and maybe a little warmer, but was wrong in both aspects.  
"What're you doing down here?"  
Harry jumped and turned to see Pansy reading in a corner, head leaving on an elbow. She looked tired from the candlelight next to her book. Harry stumbled over to her, his feet asleep from the chilliness of the dungeons; he wondered how Slytherins could stand it.  
_Brrr._  
"Do you ever stop reading?" Was asked groggily. He squinted at the text in the book but it swam in front of his eyes.  
"Looking for ways to change back to our normal bodies," she muttered, turning a page. Mussed blonde ringlets touched the page as she leaned in several centimeters from the script before her, reading something carefully. Then she grunted and pushed the book away, slamming it shut. "Go away, Zabini."  
"Why?" Harry was too tired to form longer sentences.  
"Because I said so."  
"Slytherin."  
"Hrmph."  
Harry shuddered. "How do you stand how cold it is?"  
"Wear layers, idiot."  
Pansy was standing up, dusting off her wrinkled clothing, and stretching. She cracked her neck, causing Harry to raise an eyebrow, and then she flung herself back down on the couch.  
"I hate having curly hair," was all she said, before sighing and closing her eyes. Harry blinked, now pretty much awake. His stomach growled.  
"Personally, I think Zabini's hair is an improvement for me." The clock chimed four times.  
Pansy didn't reply, just breathed in deeply. Harry absently studied Zabini's hands. They weren't worn from Quidditch, nor did the nails have any dirt under them. His wrists were uncomfortably bony.  
He felt something fall against his left side, and when he looked over he got hair in his mouth. Shaking his head, he realized that Parkinson had fallen asleep against him. She was now snoring lightly. Harry shrunk into the couch, unsure whether he should just get up and let her sleep on the sofa, or if he should keep sitting there. Her hair was tickling his neck. He found it all rather uncomfortable.  
Huh.  
He stood slowly, aware of the sudden coldness on his left side that had been absent for the past few minutes. The moment Pansy's head hit the cushion she stirred, but didn't wake up; Harry hurried to his room, freezing. Again.

.~*~.

Good? Bad? Review? *Offers cookie*


	4. Chapter 4: Finding Weasley

Some notes about this chapter:  
-Sorry it's so short.  
-You learn about two new characters in this chapter. I'm sorry that introducing them is rather rushed - I got to the end of the chapter and then couldn't really add in.

The characters we know of are (body - person IN body):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall (or I've at least tried to imply so... freebie I guess?)  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
I think that's everyone. And most of you already have figured out whose body Snape is occupying.

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**asdf **(thank you :D), Shuki - aka Quickjewel (you're right - is it too easy to guess? :\ ), risi (thanks! ^^ I am 13, yep, I plan to publish a novel I am writing now within the next four years), IBitTheMufinMan (nah, everyone except the ghosts and house elves have changed bodies, so Pansy's not still in her body), Prophetess Of Hearts, goldenpaw (yep), Winnie2, XxDarkGoddessxX, Katie Lupin Black (I'll try and have Dumbledore explain that later - the idea is that Harry is safer if Voldie doesn't know whose body he's in), penny, Fuzzy-Bumpkins (yep), moraco (lol thanks :D), Ronda-Silverpaw, The Cat That Killed Curiosity, Andromeda Snape-Malfoy. 

Here we go.

.~*~.

At least Harry wasn't the only one who seemed to have trouble getting up early, he found when he got to the Great Hall for breakfast the next morning. People all around the Hall were squinting to see what they were putting on their plates, and stumbling to find empty seats at their house tables, some heading for the wrong table before turning and heading to another.  
He blew on the coffee in his cup before sipping it. It woke him up fairly quickly, and he tried to remember what his first class was.  
_Ah, Divination_, he mused. _Maybe Trelawney won't be so batsy now_. 

The bell rang and Harry drug himself to the Divination tower, where Trelawney was seated at her desk, not in the shadows for once, frowning and holding a cup of coffee.  
He was one of the last there, and took a seat on one of the overstuffed chairs and looked up at his teacher, realizing that while she still donned the overly-large spectacles, Trelawney had no other bangles on her. It made her look a little older.  
Once all of the children were in the classroom, Trelawney swung her feet up on her desk.  
"Alright class. Frankly, I don't do the Divination stuff, so this class will pretty much be a free period for you to do your homework in. I will be willing to help you if you have any questions. None of you have homework today, though, so you can either read your textbooks or talk quietly."  
The words were like music to Harry's ears. No more would he have to hear of his death being predicted (although he chose to ignore the fact that Blaise probably didn't hear about his death that often). There was a small group of Slytherins and Ravenclaws, who all looked at each other uneasily. Padma was seated next to Harry. "This is great. I hate Divination."  
"I _know_," Padma told him, stretching and yawning. "I always have to make up everything for the assignments." Padma's Ravenclaw badge was upside-down. "I pass somewhat anyway."  
Harry raised an eyebrow. "You sound a lot like Ron," he muttered.  
Padma nodded. "Yeah, that's me."  
"Seriously?" Harry grinned. He had a class with Ron.  
"Um, yeah. Who're you?"  
He leaned in and muttered into Padma's ear. "It's me. Harry."  
"Oh!" Padma grinned at him. "Excellent!"  
They talked back and forth lightly, sharing experiences of their new houses.  
"Trust me, mate, be glad you didn't change to a Ravenclaw. They have half a million stairs to get to the commons and then some more to the dorms."  
He laughed. "Slytherin is cold."  
"What did you expect?"  
Crabbe snorted from the neighboring table. He had been reading The Daily Prophet.  
"Who's Crabbe?" Padma asked, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at her.  
Harry shrugged. "Padma."  
"What?"  
"He's Padma," Harry repeated, rolling his eyes. Good to know some things don't change.

They only parted when they reached the Charms hallway. Harry was extremely thankful to have found at least one of his friends.  
Charms was a rather shabby review period which most of the students talked during, and the teacher gave up and joined a discussion about the house robes being too monotonous. Harry was finding that it probably wasn't a good thing that he wasn't receiving homework. It meant more time for boredom.  
Lunch came, and Harry plowed down two courses of macaroni, before heading off to get his books for Care of Magical Creatures and History of Magic.  
Care of Magical Creatures actually had a structured lesson, as well as homework. _At least Hagrid didn't actually bring a Quintaped to class_, Harry noted.  
Upon entering the History classroom, the ghost professor entered through the blackboard.  
"As I am a ghost and am not currently a human, I am still you same old professor. Now, in the 1700s there was a great wizard named...."  
He started his Care of Magical Creatures assignment.

At dinnertime he shot out of the classroom, anxious to get to dinner. Dumping his books in his dorm, he exited the commons only to run into someone.  
Apologizing automatically, Harry looked up from where he'd landed on the floor to the person he'd run into, expecting a glaring housemate or the head of Slytherin, but jumped when he saw fiery hair and familiar robes with small patches sewn onto the bottoms where the hem had been tripped over so many times before.  
"I want my stuff." Ron said, simply.  
"Then what will I have?" Harry asked, a bit more bitingly than he expected of himself. He missed his own voice, sociable instead of reserved. He'd learned in the past few days that you could tell a lot about a person from their voice. "You want you running around in nothing but Slytherin boxers?"  
Ron had started to speak and coughed before continuing what Harry had drowned out. "You know what I mean. The book."  
"Why do you want it?"  
"Isn't it obvious by now? I've been learning to protect myself from the Dark Lord. I don't recklessly serve myself to him on a platter," he sneered, looking down his nose at Harry. "But I do take precautions. I do not plan to interrupt my studies just because of something like this." He waved his arms around vaguely.  
Harry rubbed his head. "You sound like Hermione."  
"I wouldn't know," Ron told him, crossing his arms. "I don't like the idea of being compared to a Gryffindor. Personally, I think Gryffindors don't think enough about their actions."  
Harry shrugged. "I'm not that fond of Slytherin either. The only reason I'm in Gryffindor is because I didn't want to go to Slytherin. Sorting Hat's idea."  
Ron raised an eyebrow. Harry realized they were slowly walking towards the Hall. "You told me that why?"  
"I was wondering the same thing."  
They walked in silence, at the same slow speed. Harry had to try hard to remember that the redhead next to him wasn't Ron, that he couldn't start talking about the Chudley Cannons or how boring History of Magic was and expect to hold a conversation that wasn't awkward. Once again in his life he felt very small.  
"I expect my book after dinner," Ron said plainly, before heading off in the direction of the Gryffindor table. Harry started to follow but remembered he was a Slytherin, at least temporarily.  
"Hey Blaise," Crabbe greeted him as he sat between him and Pansy, who looked ready to fall asleep in her soup.  
"Hi Crabbe," he responded, poking his soggy salad with a fork before getting some chicken off a platter instead. "How're you?"  
"Oh, I'm fine. What's with following Weasley? He nagging you again?"  
Pansy had glanced over at him, and he nervously got stuck in the middle of two questioning glances, each completely oblivious to the other.  
"Er." Pansy's eyes were very large and blue. Her hair still looked mussed, like she hadn't bothered combing it for days. He found his shoulder reminding him how comfy he'd been with Pansy asleep on it.  
"Blaise?"  
"Oh. Yeah. I mean, no. He was just asking me about. Classes." Harry said jerkily, ripping his eyes from the girl's and answering Crabbe, making up each word as he came to it.  
"But he's in a different house. The houses don't _have_ similar schedules," he reminded him suspiciously.  
"Um... I think he's a first year, all confused and stuff."  
"Uh huh." He turned and talked to someone else down the table, and Harry focused on looking at no one.

Ready to retire to his dorm, he found that Ron had put an arm over his shoulder and was steering him back through the crowd of Slytherins turning in after supper to an empty dungeon classroom.  
"Um, I need to go into my dorm to get the book," Harry told him as soon as Ron had snapped the door shut, still smiling in an intimidating fashion. It didn't reach his eyes.  
"It's not about that," he replied pleasantly, putting his hands together. He frowned and stared into Harry's eyes, looking for something. Shaking his head, he said patronizingly, "No, never mind. Draco's seems to have enjoyed digging through your stuff, especially since he found these."  
He turned out his pockets, dumping a silvery object and a folded piece of parchment on the desk. Harry groaned. His cloak, his map. Malfoy could have used them. Then he realized with a jolt and a dirty feeling that Malfoy must be the one occupying his body.  
_Ew_.  
"Malfoy's in my body?!"  
"Uh huh."  
With a repulsed look on his face, Harry tried to grab his map and cloak, but Ron snatched them up before Harry could and held them above his head. His best friend's body was a lot taller than Zabini's. He couldn't reach them.  
"You're not getting your book then."  
"Yes I am."  
"How do you expect to do that?" Harry asked him, raising an eyebrow.  
"Slytherin persistence. I'll follow you. You can't go into your common room without saying the password. I'll hear it."  
"Then I'll hang out out here for a while," Harry said, shrugging. "I can take my time."  
"Curfew's soon. I'll put on your cloak and you won't see me following."  
Harry's eyebrows knitted themselves together.  
"Why can't I have my stuff if you get your stuff?" he finally asked wearily.  
"Draco wants to play around with them a bit. What's the parchment for?"  
"If you don't already know, I'm not revealing that piece of information," Harry told him, eyes narrowing.  
"Fine, whatever, you take it. I don't really care. Now give me my book."  
"Fine."  
Harry led Ron to the stretch of wall that opened to his–no, he caught himself, Slytherin's–common room, Ron seemed to be staring at him again.  
"Stop it. You're making me nervous."  
"I don't care about your personal comfort, _Zabini_. Get on with it already."  
"_Billywig_," Harry mumbled, kicking a quill out of his way as he led Ron through the commons to his dorm. He stuffed the Marauder's Map into his trunk and threw Ron's book at his head.  
"Take your bloody book and get out, _Weasley_."

Ron left, smirking, and Harry fell onto his four-poster, staring up at the velvet top. All the green was getting to him. He missed the bright red and gold colors of Gryffindor.  
Funny, he mused, he was getting somewhat used to the dungeons that he had to live in until further notice. He still didn't like his predicament, but he mused it was better than being turned into... he paused for a moment. Someone old, or a professor who had to teach classes. He shuddered at the thought of turning into Snape. The day he traded bodies with his potions professor was the day he served himself to Voldemort on a silver platter.  
Crabbe broke his train of thought, bursting into the previously serene dormitory seething with anger. Harry looked over at him, but he just snapped his curtains shut.  
"What's up?"  
There was no reply. He thought he heard a choked gasp.  
He left the dorm quietly, not particularly wanting to hear Crabbe cry.

.~*~.

Good? Bad? Review?


	5. Chapter 5: Chaotic Greenhouses

Some notes about this chapter:  
-No real cliffie this time, I got writers' block but decided to post what I had. :P  
-Ugh, sorry for Pansy's sudden change of behavior. She's supposed to have realized she was going "soft" (from her late night conversation with Crabbe) and toughened up again, but I never really explained it that well. I wanted her to be more in-character.  
-Sorry for the slow updates! I've got a lot going on lately (ahh! Tomorrow's my orchestra's POPS concert! *panic panic*), so I have had no time to update consistently, or write anything, for that matter. :'(  
-Oh yeah, if there are any Diarylanders here - I made a Harry/Snape pairing Diaryring! Whoo hoo! If you look in the H section of the Diaryrings directory, its ring name is harry-snape. That way everyone can know we're obsessed. :D  
-Wow! I'm on the Auther Alert list of 16 people? Sweet! :)

The characters we know of are (body - person IN body):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
I think that's everyone. And most of you already have figured out whose body Snape is occupying - go you. Lol.

I was thinking about this, and once I finish this, I'm going to make a few other (shorter) stories around some of the characters who aren't being followed in this story - for example, Neville, who I've had a good idea for since before my plotline idea for this story, as well as some possible foreshadowing of Blaise's book and stuff. Who knows? :)

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**golden paw** (thanks! :D ), **risi** (wow, thanks for the long, detailed review. It's really helpful to hear what parts people like and dislike about one's writing. ^^ Yes, I am going to work some of that in - poor Ron-gone-Padma, he's in the dark. I think changing sex would be less of a shock to Hogwarts students than us - they've been through an awful lot, like Hermione turning into a cat in book two. Thanks again!), **XxDarkGoddessxX** (well, that's not good! This story seems to be confusing a lot of people, lol, I dunno if it's my writing or just my plot in general... O.o), **xSnapeLoverx** (correct guess for who Snape's occupying, but you'll see about Hermione!), **antigonesev** (you'll find that out soon... will probably be mentioned in here and then deepened in a side story), **chickens** (ok! :) ), **Maxwell Demon** (hmm... well, Harry hasn't figured out who Pansy is yet, and since the readers are supposed to know while reading (at least, that was my original plan... whoo), but Harry will find out near the end. ^^" Poor Harry.), **insanechildfanfic** (thanks!), **Lee Lee Potter** (thanks! Hmm, hadn't really thought about bringing Draco into this story too much (but he will be in it some!), but maybe that could be a sidestory too. Whee. He will realize how much crap Harry has to go through though, after he finishes abusing the position.), **Cally** (that should be explained in coming chapters, and somewhat in this one), **Katie Lupin Black** (yep, thanks!), **Alvit-Valkyrie** (he got his map back, but Blaise (the real Blaise... lol) kept his cloak for Draco), **BURN THE R.U.M** (thanks!), **mistik-elf13** (:D Snape's acting more Snapeish in this chapter so you should figure out who he is this chapter. :) ).

Whooooo, lots of replies, hehe. Anyway, onto the story!

.~*~.

There weren't that many students left in the common room. The fires were burning low and most of the Slytherins with any sense had turned in. In fact, after Malfoy passed him on the stairs, Harry was alone in the commons with Pansy, once again. He found himself rather trapped. On one hand, there was certainly a danger in beginning to feel... anything... for someone who you would literally lose eventually, and on the other, he didn't feel like staying in the dorm.  
So, feeling very stupid afterwards, he did the next best thing.  
He sat on the stairs. 

Stone. They were _cold_. Everything about Slytherin was cold, from their commons to their attitude. At least of the Slytherins he knew. None of which he recognized as more than enemies. The usual–Malfoy, Malfoy senior, Snape, Crabbe, Goyle, the death eaters. Maybe there really was something underneath that cold exterior. He couldn't figure out for the life of him what that could be, though.  
"What are you doing?"  
The irritated question surprised him. He'd really been getting into his thoughts there, for a moment. Harry looked up at Pansy and squinted, wondering who she could be. She'd said she was a Slytherin already. Was she Millicent? He shuddered inwardly at the thought. No, she couldn't be. Possibly a younger Slytherin. Or a 7th year. He had to admit, he didn't really know anyone of different years nowadays, besides a few other Gryffindors. That left... too many people to narrow down right now. He shook his thoughts away.  
"I... don't know."  
She rolled her eyes before returning them to her never-ending supply of books. "Come to keep me company again, I see?"  
Silence. She coughed. Her hair was a matted mess.  
"Don't you know how to comb your hair?"  
"I'm ready to cut the stuff off," she mumbled, then, louder, "I know how to use a comb, idiot. I'm just not really concerned with that right now."  
"Then what _are_ you concerned with?"  
"Changing back. I don't particularly want to stay in Parkinson's body until who knows when. Going through all these classes again. Especially when the teachers don't know how to teach."  
"I think the Care of Magical Creatures teacher is doing a good job," Harry said unconvincingly. He missed Hagrid's classes.  
Pansy didn't comment. "I feel it's my duty to find something to help change us all back," she told him, her words fading into silence as she read. This silence stretched into several minutes before Harry replied. "Why?"

She looked up and stared at him. After a moment she blinked and looked away. "I–don't know." Pansy didn't continue.  
"You're a seventh year then?"  
"What makes you think that?" she said sharply, going back to staring at him. It was getting him nervous.  
"You said you were going through the classes again."  
"Damnit." She stretched, and Harry had the feeling she was stalling. "I'm going to bed."  
"Are you?"  
She mumbled incoherently and trudged up the staircase, not replying.  
Harry looked at the book she'd left, a bookmark sticking out near the back. He flipped open the cover to see the title.  
In large, embossed letters it read, 'Property of:'. The two words below it, presumably a name, had been scratched out numerous times with a thick quill, and Harry could not read it.  
He sighed. The clock above the hearth told him that it was now almost ten. Deciding there was not much else worth doing, he too made his way to his dormitory, hoping that Crabbe had fallen asleep.

Thursday dawned in darkness, rain pouring outside. Lightning struck somewhere above the Forbidden Forest. At breakfast, Harry looked up, expecting to see rain, but only saw dull stone. The ceiling had been disenchanted.  
Crabbe hadn't appeared so far this morning. When Harry had awakened, he still had the curtains of his four-poster drawn shut. He had tried to talk him, but Crabbe didn't really seem too talkative.  
Harry wondered what had caused his new housemate to be so upset. Ravenclaws had never struck him to be the sort to cry.  
Then again, it wasn't as though he knew any Ravenclaws that well.

He sighed. First class was Herbology with Ravenclaw. At least he'd get to see Ron... Padma. He paused in the middle of chewing on his bacon to think about how mind-boggling Hogwarts' situation really was. His best friend was now Padma, but Padma was actually Ron. Ron was the owner of the body he had taken residence in. Harry was Blaise Zabini. It was all really confusing.  
Hermione. He missed her. Where had she landed? No one, besides perhaps Pansy, had struck him as becoming suddenly studious. And Pansy had said she was a Slytherin.  
Maybe it really was Hermione and she was lying? Pansy had called him a Gryffindork. Hermione had never used that term, but then again, no Gryffindor ever had.  
He shook his head, resuming his chewing. Too early to think.

The greenhouses were chaotic. Plants which had not been watered in days terrorized students as they tried to do so. Flytraps lashed out at anyone within a three-foot radius, including neighboring plants, and large tentacled things crawled around the floor and tables, tangling around students' legs and tapping them on the shoulder.  
"Padma, you have a plant on your foot." Harry told his partner, who looked downwards and yelped, then kicked it off and looked at Harry sheepishly.  
"I think being a girl's worn off on me."  
"Uh huh," Harry muttered distractedly, trying to water a small flutterby bush while reaching over a cactus that pulsated, like it was breathing.  
"I wonder if every class will be like this," Padma said drearily, and seemed to be contemplating whether or not she should water the cactus.  
"Hopefully not."  
Somewhere behind them, a Ravenclaw prefect tripped and knocked over a table, the plants which had previously been sitting on it sliding off and bouncing away. They ignored it.  
"Hey, I wonder where Hermione is," Padma said brightly, changing topics. Harry shrugged.  
"No idea."  
"I've been looking around for her a lot, but I don't know where she could be. I never realized there were so many students at Hogwarts," she groaned.  
"She could be anywhere," Harry agreed, not really paying that much attention. It occurred to him that while Padma was talking and following him around, she wasn't doing much else. He sighed inwardly and watered various plants.  
"But you know, it's really cool bring a girl," Padma told him, sounding a bit too pleased. Harry rolled his eyes.  
"You probably won't be so happy later," Crabbe informed him, having just entered the greenhouse, looking miserable. It wasn't an emotion often depicted on his wide face.

"What do you mean?" Padma spluttered. Both ignored him.  
"What was up last night?"  
"A combination of depression, stress, and the fact that Pansy seems to enjoy arguing. It was stupid. Sorry if I bothered you."  
"You didn't," he reassured Crabbe, nodding. "What were you and Pansy arguing about?"  
"It was so stupid that I forget now," Crabbe said unconvincingly with a shrug. Harry shrugged too. Padma looked confused.  
"So... what's up?"  
"We're all just peachy, R–Padma," Harry snapped. The comment would've been considerably more effective had he not stumbled over calling Padma the right name.  
"Whoa, where'd that come from?" she asked, then shrugged when Harry watered what was most easily described as purple tomatoes. Some had green spots.

The class ended, and Padma and Harry parted at the doors of the school, Harry and Crabbe heading to Potions.  
Harry knew Crabbe didn't really want to talk about it. When he glanced over at the other Slytherin, he saw that he was having trouble walking, books slung over his shoulder.  
"Something wrong?"  
"Bugger this," Crabbe said, stopping to lean against the wall. "I don't think Crabbe's body is too used to walking all the way across the castle to the dungeons." He took a large gulp of air. "He needs a hobby. Like, other than following Malfoy around and looking stupid. Ugh, I hate being a boy, it's so gross!"  
"Hey," Harry couldn't help but interject while he was panting again. He now trailed behind Harry, dragging his bag along the floor, until it caught on a bumpy stone in the floor and ripped open, enchanted textbooks flying in all directions.  
"Ugh!"  
Harry summoned them all back and slid to the floor next to Crabbe, handing them back. Crabbe groaned, face in his hands.  
"Thanks. I guess we hafta get to Potions though, huh?"  
"I dunno... Snape kinda seems a little off," Harry said.

"Huh?"  
Pansy turned the corner and stopped in front of them, looking at them down her nose, an awkward sneer on her face. "Disgusting."  
"Who peed in your cereal?" Crabbe retaliated. Pansy looked slightly confused.  
"What happened to you? You look like you fell off the Astronomy tower," Harry asked her, getting ignored by the other two as they bickered.  
Insults were sent back and forth, and Harry sighed, picked up Zabini's book sack, and slung it over his shoulder. Then they stopped, looking at him.  
"Where are you going?"  
"Potions. What is up with you two? Who bloody _cares_ about whatever happened yesterday? And you, Pansy, what's up? You're acting like a child."  
Crabbe stood and dusted himself off, muttering apologies. Pansy looked as though Harry had just slapped her. She turned on her heel and strutted off to the Potions classroom, the other two following at a distance.

Potions was a disaster zone. All of the students seemed to be talking to their recently lost and found buddies, and Snape stood in front of everything, looking bewildered and exasperated. His hands were shaking. Pansy was staring at him.  
Crabbe had just apologized to Pansy, but they still were wary of one another, using Harry as a wall. So, he was constantly being distracted by one or the other as he tried to follow the instructions on the board. Beside him, two one-sided conversations were happening.  
"I can't wait until we're back in our normal bodies–" Pansy said from his left side.  
"They should put some windows in here, it's too dark–" Crabbe said from his right.  
"Then I can forget this ever happened–"  
"Enchanted windows really are cool, Ravenclaw has some–"  
"The sooner we get out of this preposterous situation the better–"  
"Like, you can see what's outside but no one can see you looking through–"  
"What's the worst about it, though, is that you don't know who to trust because anyone could bloody be anyone–"  
"Pity they reflect our true selves, so we can't have them yet–"  
"And this reliving 6th year shit is wearing my patience thin–"  
"I wonder if they'll still be there when we're changed back–"  
"Idiot students can't teach–"  
Harry clutched each side of his head, slightly jumping when he felt manageable locks, almost feeling steam spouting from his ears. "Do shut up!"  
To his slight amazement, both of their next statements died on their lips. "Either talk _with_ me, both of you included, or keep quiet! You're driving me up the bloody wall!"  
He later regretted this comment when both his housemates' pride kept them from talking the rest of the class.

.~*~.

No cliffhanger, but I promise more interesting parts soon, sorry! *Gives out cookies to reviewers*


	6. Chapter 6: Musings

Some notes about this chapter:  
-I keep using the wrong sex with pronouns. Gah. I know who's in the body I'm talking about, but I'm forgetting to refer to the body. And really, referring to Harry-in-Blaise just screws up everything, especially when referring to Draco-in-Harry. Ah well, this just doesn't make sense anyway. The pronouns were especially hard at the end with Snape-in-Pansy (if you hadn't had it figured out, sorries... you were supposed to know by now but if you didn't it was my fault :S), too... I wrote an entire section with male pronouns about his previous experiences in love, and it sounds so gay (_imagine_, lol) now. Ah well. (And no, I did not just use gay as a synonym for stupid. It was a rather lacking pun, referring to Lily and Snape [who is now Pansy]. Ta da.)  
-I know I update slowly, errr... just suck it up? (retarded Monk reference, cough)  
-I had something else to say, crap.  
-Ah yes. In this story, as much as I really really don't like Lily/Snape, it references it as something in the past. It won't be gone into in detail, but it is a factor that will hopefully make the H/S romance more accepting, lol. Not that it will be easy, of course - that would make it boring. ^^"

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
I feel like I'm missing someone; if I am, leave a note in your review if you even notice ^^"

In the break between last chapter and this one, I thought of the awesomest Ron/Severus plot idea. I want to write it, but I will finish this story first, no worries. If you ever become interested in that pairing once this one's done, you can check it out. :)

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Moni**, **XxDarkGoddessxX** (okedie :D), **ataraxis** (me too... then it'll be easier to write, hopefully. But hey, I'm having fun! XD), **Baroness Jumping Rain; Sidda**, **mistik-elf13** (yep!), **Lee Lee Potter** (yes he is XD), **Katie Lupin Black** (aww, thanks. :) I think my writing has actually improved with this piece... especially in this chapter), **xSnapeLoverx** (whoa, I wouldn't call it one of the best stories ever, but thanks for the appreciation in any case :) ), **risi** (actually, there are a few capable teachers running around... we just haven't seen them in detail yet. I was going to reveal Hermione in this chapter but decided that would tie up my plot way too soon ^^"), **Shania Maxwell** (thanks!), **Enahma** (ahhh! Sorry! Gah, I write really irregularly, I know I should write more! I'll keep you in mind when I slack off :) ), **Ronda-Silverpaw**, **BURN THE R.U.M** (yep! And I can't reveal Hermione yet, but don't worry. ;) ), **penny**, **Fuzzy-Bumpkins** (haha yes I will give you S/H romance when you don't steal my word squee... seriously though, thanks for the review :) ), **Marie** (well hello! Never thought I'd see you here, lol. Nope, Pansy's not Hermione...)

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... just to enlighten the unenlightened.

.~*~.

Chapter *Six*

Friday came with the dull gloom of a storm. Harry groaned and pushed a pile of blankets off of himself, waking up considerably more from the coldness of the dungeons. He knew he'd never get used to it.  
_Merlin_, he noted in his head, bewildered, and closed his eyes. _This feels permanent now._  
Malfoy was still asleep in the bed next to his, and when he swivelled his head to glance at Crabbe, he jumped, seeing eyes looking right back at him.  
"Mmm, mornin' Blaise."  
"Good morning," he replied, stretching and then pulling his arms back around Zabini's–no, his–thin body for warmth. He pulled his socks off as he walked to the showers, tossing them in the general direction of his bed as he closed the dormitory door. They fell short of their target, one on Crabbe's head, and one on his shoulder. He ignored them entirely, continuing to meditate. 

After a brief breakfast of pancakes and coffee, Harry trailed behind a group of Slytherins in a lower year until he reached the Transfiguration hallway. McGonagall was unlocking the door to her room with on hand, rubbing at her eyes with the other. Her hair was wrapped in a tight bun, and she wore a robe identical to the one she always wore. She jumped when he stopped beside her, leaning on the wall.  
"Good morning, Zabini. Please take a seat, but don't get too comfortable, I will assign seats when the rest of the students arrive."  
Harry stayed in the doorway, not moving to sit, but staring around at the room. Most everything was left the way it had originally been when the real McGonagall had taught. This one was erasing yesterday's notes off the board.  
"Well?"  
"Oh, sorry," he said automatically, unconsciously sitting at the desk that his friends and himself used to share. He moodily stared at the shiny surface.  
McGonagall greeted each Slytherin as they entered. She took role call, as she had when they were first years, nodding, then got about to re-assigning seats. Each Slytherin was to have a partner. Harry's was Millicent Bulstrode.

Millicent Bulstrode, for once, looked pleasant. She still had a rather large form and square jaw that made her intimidating, but somehow, now she just looked like she was trying to see the good in the situation. It made her look somewhat out of place.  
As soon as McGonagall had finished explaining what they were to be doing, Harry's partner made eye contact with him, and offered her hand for a handshake, which Harry returned rather awkwardly. "Pleased to meet you, Blaise. I'm Millicent. Well, actually, I'm not, but y'know...."  
Harry nodded, giving a quick grin, and glanced at the board. Their professor had finished writing the directions on the board and was at her desk, staring down at some papers and chewing her quill. He squinted. The action seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.

The class passed rather smoothly. At the end, McGonagall gave them a "light reading" assignment which ended up to be thirty pages in their textbooks, but after groaning in his head, Harry finished it anyway during Divination.  
The first partial week drew to a close as the students returned to their dormitories after a hearty dinner and gradually disappeared to their rooms. Harry was one of the first to turn in, rubbing at his eyes. He rolled around in the bed which never seemed to warm up, shivering and cursing his dumb luck, again, to have been taken from his cozy Gryffindor tower and reduced to this.  
Sleep avoided him, and he gave up tossing his blankets off and digging in his trunk, to find anything that might be somewhat amusing. He pulled out his map.  
The Marauder's Map.  
He unlocked it and stared at the few dots still awake, holding his lit wand tip close to the paper. Each dot he traced with his finger on its path.  
A tiny dot, labeled 'Severus Snape', was slowly edging around the Forbidden Forest.  
He stopped tracing to study it more closely. Every now and then, he saw a speech bubble. The dot was spouting curse words. 'Damnit' seemed to be his Potions master's favorite one, appearing numerous times as he briefly disappeared into the forest, only to come out again several seconds.

He slipped through the curtain, shaking his wand to darken it again, and stared out the window. Yes, there he was–the light he'd seen twice before. Every now and then it would fade into the forest.  
Harry returned to his map, wanting to check for any other people out of bounds, when Malfoy entered the common room, moodily slamming the door open and flicking on the overhead light. Crabbe grunted from behind his bedcurtains and Harry was temporarily blinded.  
"What's _your_ problem?" Malfoy spat at him as he passed him on his way to the showers. Harry was too dazed to retaliate, turning off the light and falling back into bed.  
The sound of the showers filled the room, but Harry wiped the map blank and replaced it in his trunk, falling asleep rather quickly under his pile of goosefeather quilts.

Saturday came all too soon. The light from the window he'd forgotten to close lit up his four-poster, seeping through the curtains. He rolled over.  
A half hour later he got up, skipping a shower, to retrieve some toast. As he passed the window outside the Great Hall, he saw that the day was sunny. Such could not be determined from the Hall. The ceiling had a crack running through it, and to Harry it was a rather sad sight. That ceiling had been a part of Hogwarts he loved.  
Grabbing two slices of toast, he stretched and made his way to the grounds, deeming it a fairly nice day to eat by the lake. No one was out on his section of the lake, the one with the tree and stone. Once, years ago, his father and friends had come out here after taking their OWLs. He'd seen so in Snape's pensieve. It wasn't his fondest memory, and it wasn't Harry's either.

"Oh. Hey."  
Glancing up, Harry swallowed a mouthful of his dry breakfast and nodded awkwardly to his visitor. He'd eaten out here with Pansy once, he supposed he could do it again.  
"I thought I'd find you here. I just wanted to apologize for the thing Thursday. Sorry."  
Here Pansy waited, and it took a few seconds for Harry to realize he was supposed to say something. So he said, "oh."  
Pansy was rocking nervously on the balls of her feet. Her blonde curls looked like they'd actually been paid attention to this morning. Her face was washed. He even smelled a hint of perfume, but not in a sickeningly sweet fashion like what Pansy had used to wear, when she was actually Pansy.  
All this didn't register as a good thing to Harry though. It was like she wanted to impress–  
"I'll be going then," she said shortly, turning. Harry didn't do anything to stop her, leaning back heavily against the tree. A branch was poking him in the head, but he didn't really care at the moment.  
He wondered how he couldn't get any desirable attention from girls as Harry Potter, when he'd unknowingly attracted one as Blaise Zabini. One of the prettiest in the school, now that she'd grown out of the troll-like figure she'd had in first year. He groaned.  
She wasn't even _her_. She could be anyone. _Anyone_.

Padma appeared around the tree, looking at him like he was crazy.  
"Harry, you just let her walk away!"  
He'd missed something.  
"You were over there the whole time?"  
"Nah, I was just here before Pansy. I was trying to fly the old broom Davies sent to that Ravenclaw a year younger than him last year, y'know? The quality of the broom makes you think it was a last-minute birthday gift or something. It stinks."  
Harry rolled his eyes at the lame excuse of Padma's eavesdropping.  
"But bugger, mate, you let the prettiest girl of the school walk away! Yeah, admittedly, she's Slytherin, but–"  
"Ron, she could be anyone."  
"True, but she's still got one nice body."  
He squeezed his eyes shut. "Ron, I do not want to know what you have to share about female anatomy."  
Padma blinked. "Yeah, whatever. Oh well. I'm going to go get breakfast. You coming?"  
"If it makes you happy," Harry replied somewhat sarcastically, giving his friend a wry grin before they left.

Harry Potter's body, which housed one Draco Malfoy, was currently grinning like mad.  
Who knew being an enemy could be so... well, the word fun was below him. Amusing, how about. Whatever it was, it was definitely amusing.  
It had taken him a while to get used to the cloak. And being invisible. He'd never realized that invisibility didn't mean one could go _through_ things, so he'd run smack into his Potions professor, who had freaked out and run away. And the cloak was oversized, so he'd tripped three or four times on his way here. With dignity! Yes. It didn't matter, he was invisible anyway.  
Tile floors were uncomfortable though. And by sitting in the girls' showers, he was being dripped on an awful lot. Potter would kill if he ruined the cloak, but that was all the more reason to enjoy this spying session.

"Damnit."  
Pansy Parkinson sat alone in the common room, massaging her temple with the hand her head was not propped on.  
_You do not want to fall for a teenager. You do not want to fall for a student. You do not want to fall for a Gryffindor._  
She sighed and her head sunk onto the ancient book she'd been scouring about the castle wards. She understand why she bothered anyway, now that she was back to something she'd been doing ever since the shock of being a teenage girl had worn off. Who was she kidding? She couldn't concentrate anyway. Damn teenage hormones just wouldn't leave her alone.  
She almost pitied the students she assigned such long essays to. Potions seemed so entirely boring now. Almost.  
_But you are._  
Those damn wards. They had to be unfinished. No, of course they couldn't be complete and in working order. They just had to be unfinished and unpredictable. They just had to screw up her already screwed life _more_.  
He sat back in the armchair and glared at the wall.  
And Albus. No, of course _he_ didn't have to bother working on getting them out of this situation. To him it was all a game. An effective means of guarding the golden boy, in fact.  
She missed her firewhiskey.  
_You can't fall for someone else while everyone's like this because you'd just be setting yourself up for another lost love._  
Squeezed her eyes shut.  
Albus loved his little golden boy. Why was the damned scarhead worth so many others' lives?  
_And, besides, Blaise could be anyone. He could be another male. Or worse, a female._  
Her forehead returned to the book. She was sure he'd rub newsprint onto his head at some point.  
That damned Potter. That damned Evans. They had to give birth to the hero, didn't they? Evans had dated her for what, six months? Then she'd gotten tired of her, and instead went for the man who he envied for everything else. Up until then, she'd at least had one on Potter.  
She'd never forgiven Evans, even after her death. The woman who screwed up her life. Who gave her a grudge against the entirety of females.  
Since, she'd pretty much decided her love life was at its end.


	7. Chapter 7: Streaking

Yes, it's true! Inspired by the many reviews I got _the first two days_ after I posted the last chapter, I present to you chapter seven, only a week (or six days right now :P) after I posted the last one. Inspire me again, please, lol. Just don't expect another update that quick, I have a project due Friday.

Some notes about this chapter:  
-Yeah, I know Snape is out of character... but wouldn't anybody who gets put into someone else's body be a little offset? :S Yes, this is my lame excuse.  
-The rating is going up to PG13, just because I cuss a lot in my writing. (I swear, I'm hardly a pottymouth in real life. Promise.)  
-SQUEEEEE I GOT 100 REVIEWS!! *Tears of joy* I honestly never thought I'd make it past 20, thank you guys so much! *Huggles* And a cookie to my 100th reviewer, Mystic Dragonsfire. :D  
-Ron meets *coughs* womanhood in this chapter.  
-Oh, and a note on referring to Draco Malfoy (the person, not the body): I really don't like referring to his as Draco when writing because that's not how he's referred to in the books... lol... but I have to in this story. *Everyone* other than Harry and Draco are referred to as the body they're in, but those two are just special. So, from now on, Draco is Draco, Malfoy is Lavender-in-Draco's-body, and Harry is Harry-in-Blaise's-body. Taa daa.  
-Draco is such a fun character.  
-Oh yeah... I just had to do it didn't I... I wrapped another slash pairing into this story. You can probably guess what that pairing is, and no, it will not become a main focus of the story. Just to let you know. This story is about Harry and Snape. I may make a short little ficlet about the other slash pairing someday, but not now, lol.

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**risi** (yes it is. :S Am I making Hermione's character too obvious? ^^"), **asdf** (Yep. And Harry's just a bit... slow), **pixyfairy120** (alright!), **Enahma** (at least now FFN is back and working again. I think I'll try and keep using the pronouns according to the body... it'd be pretty hard to remember to refer to Pansy as a he now that I've started to get into the swing of things a little better, lol), **N Snape**, **Fox890** (Yep! You'll see about the Map in this chapter... and they'll figure each other out eventually, I have that scene perfect in my head), **penny**, **Ruth** (if you think it's confusing to read, try writing it, lol. Glad you like it :) ), **Olave** (oooh, my very first flame. *Smiles* Glad that you read part of the first chapter and decided that the entire story makes no sense. Oh, and I'll take your opinion of "my websites" to heart, I really will. "Kinda sucks" is so very depressing.), **ataraxis** (it'll probably get more confusing in this chapter too... lots of descriptions of Blaise-in-Ron, lol. See my note about referring to characters above. Thanks for the review. :) ), **Chibidaima** (thanks! :D), **Winnie2** (glad someone liked that scene, whee!), **mistik-elf13** (thanks :D), **Zombie Lord** (that's fortunate :) ), **BURN THE R.U.M**, **JEn**, **Doneril** (thanks!), **Wildfire2** (I know :S Need to work on in-characteredness a bit. I've been attempting to refer to people correctly, it's hard! Thanks for the review in any case. :) ), **Kaaera** (thanks!), **jen**, **Ronda-Silverpaw**, **Mystic Dragonsfire** (yay 100th reviewer :) )

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

.~*~.

Chapter Seven 

Draco Malfoy, housed in the body of Harry Potter, propped his feet up on a table in Gryffindor tower comfortably.  
Not many Gryffindors liked spending Sundays indoors as the weather got colder outside, even if they were in bodies that weren't their own. In fact, he was the only one, at least at the moment.  
He'd come back from his outing in the showers tired, having been kicked several times, then hearing the screeches from the girls in the showers as they realized something invisible was there., keeping them company Screams echoed inside tiled rooms. His ears had been aching.  
Now, however, he decided he was going to think of some more uses of the invisibility cloak. After all, it was fairly worn and he was pretty certain that Potter had enough brains to use it for something other than sneaking to Hogsmeade. Although, you never really knew when Potter was involved; he did have the mind of a rock, after all.  
_So_.  
A yawn overtook him, and for several seconds he stretched mindlessly. Then he had returned to... ah yes, square one.

The portrait snapped open, squawking, and Ron came in, arms crossed. He stopped at the sight of the other Gryffindor twirling the cloak around, frowning.  
"Where were you yesterday? You were supposed to help me with Transfiguration."  
Draco shrugged.  
"You know how bad I am at it, I want you to show up next time you promise you'll meet me in the library, Malfoy." Ron wrung his hands, a nervous habit he'd picked up in the past few days.  
"Sure," he said, wrapping his hand in the cloak and making it disappear. He set it on the couch, flat, to see if part of the couch would disappear. It did. "How does Potter ever _find_ this thing? It's always gone!"  
"Who knows?"  
They both paused and watched as a cameraless Colin Creevey crossed through the common room, going to his dorms. Then they continued.  
"But damn it, Malfoy, when are you going to show up?"  
"When you quit acting like I missed our anniversary or what have you."  
Ron stumbled. "Uh–huh?"  
"Yes?"  
"...Right."  
"Yes."  
They blinked at each other uncomfortably for several seconds. Ron cleared his throat.  
"Yeah, meet you at five, okay?"  
"Sure."  
"In the library."  
"Right."  
"Yeah...."  
"Why are you–" yawn, "still standing there? Shoo."  
"Oh. Alright."  
Draco was again left at... ah yes, square one. Well, now 'square negative-one-half' was more accurate. He'd forgotten what it was he was trying to think of.

Harry and Crabbe ate breakfast outside, sharing news of their mainly uneventful days. Crabbe mentioned how he disliked transfiguration being just as hard as it had previously and how he thought that McGonagall hadn't changed.  
"No, it's not McGonagall... whoever it is gave us a new seating chart and took role call. She wouldn't have to do that if she were."  
"Maybe she's just trying to confuse us. Or, like, Voldemort's spies. He must have some here at Hogwarts, you know."  
Harry shrugged.  
"So, how was your yesterday?"  
Crabbe caught some falling leaves in a hand.  
"Eh, it was okay. Pansy kinda looked like she wanted to impress me or something..."  
Crabbe wrinkled his nose.  
"Oh, and you're a girl. How do you go about telling a girl you're not interested in her?" Harry asked awkwardly, scratching his head and giving an embarrassed grin.  
"Uhm, I don't exactly reject that many girls...."  
"No, I mean, I want advice."  
"I know."  
"Well?"  
"I'm not good at giving advice," he said slowly, "but I think it's good you at least realize that whoever Pansy is is not worth your time. I mean, she's–"  
"No, uhm... I don't mind her. I just don't particularly want to date someone with an unknown identity, you know?"  
"Ah." A muscle in his neck was twitching. "Why do you like her?"  
"That's not the point–"  
"Yes, yes it is," he responded, tossing the leaves away.  
"Er." Harry pulled his legs to his chest, trying to think quickly while making time for himself. "Er... I don't."  
"Uh huh," Crabbe replied, crossing his burly arms.  
"...Yeah." Harry stood abruptly and dusted himself off. "Thanks, bye."

Returning to the castle, Harry started making his way back to his common room, but turned a corner and froze.  
There was his body. Draco. Topless.  
"What the hell are you doing...."  
"Streaking."  
"What?!"  
"I'm streaking."  
"Shit."  
Draco grinned at him.  
Harry groaned. His morning already wasn't going as uneventfully as he'd originally hoped. Now the school was going to see his previous body, lacking clothing.  
Lovely.

"What the hell?"  
A cat rubbed against the bathroom doorway, oblivious to the girl inside, who was sitting on the toilet.  
The feline padded across the carpeted room, passing several blue and bronze beds on the way and leaping into one of them. It kneaded the bed in a circle for several seconds before settling there.  
"I'm bleeding!"  
The cat fell off the four-poster with an inaudible thump.

"You are _not_ streaking in my body, damnit!"  
"Not your body anymore, Potter."  
Harry growled.  
"Something to say, Potter? You'll have to speak English, I don't understand dog."  
Draco slowly unzipped his pants, grinning across the hallway at Harry, who, while trying not to show it, was utterly horrified. Draco tossed his boxers away and then ran up the hallway the way Harry had come, leaving the now-Slytherin in the empty dungeon corridor, fuming. At least everyone knew Harry wasn't in his own body, but it didn't make too good of consolation.

"Blaise!"  
Harry looked up from the now-blank Marauder's Map at Crabbe, who looked like he was trying to grin. Crabbe's distorted face made it look evil, although that may have been the original emotion.  
"Harry Potter was streaking in the Great Hall!"  
"Oh?"  
"Yes! Omigosh... I think one of the Hufflepuffs even got a picture!"  
_Damn Creevey_.  
"Oh, and you know what Pansy did?"  
"What'd she do?" Harry's ears perked up at the mention of Pansy, in spite of himself.  
"She tried to trip him!"  
He groaned inwardly. Whoever Pansy was apparently didn't like real him all that much. Unless she'd been tripping Draco to slow him down, in which case he was certainly glad she'd missed.  
"I see...."  
"Hehe...."  
Harry made a face and rolled over on his four-poster, propping his hands behind his head. Beside him, the Map lay untouched.

Then....  
"Oh... oh."  
Crabbe glanced over at him. "Eh?"  
"Hmm."  
"What's it?"  
"Oh, nothing too important," Harry replied. He was itching for his roommate to leave the room again so he could reactivate his Map. Crabbe settled on his bed, breathing steadily and preparing to meditate, so he just took the parchment down to the common room.  
Pansy was on the couch across from his chair. She looked up from the Daily Prophet and squeaked. Her ears were turning pink.  
Harry looked at the Marauder's Map and then at Pansy, and frowned. He could find out who Pansy was if he had it activated while in here. But that seemed to drain a little of the mystery out of the situation.

What if she was Ginny? He couldn't really picture Ginny, giggling and innocent, trapped into the body of a somewhat slutty Slytherin who hangs out with Draco Malfoy and has an entire wardrobe of clingy clothing. No, it couldn't be Ginny though. She wouldn't spend her time reading while switched. She would be finding her friends. That was good though. It meant Pansy probably had no clue who he was either.  
But then there was an entire school of other people who it could be.  
Who could he narrow out?  
Blaise was in Ron's body. Ron was in Padma's. Padma was in Crabbe's. Dumbledore was in Goyle's, which was a humbling thought.  
McGonagall had fallen into Neville's body. Malfoy (_thank Merlin I know where he is...._) was living a life on the edge in Harry's own body. Lavender was in Malfoy's body.  
He was getting a headache.

_Hermione_.  
Hermione did a lot of light reading. Hermione didn't care how she looked, unless she was trying to impress someone.  
Hermione would be trying to find a way out of the school. And she was smart enough to be a good actor.  
But Hermione wasn't a Slytherin.  
_Damn_.

"Every _month_?"  
"Yeah." Luna Lovegood was looking at Padma very impatiently. "You are one _ignorant_ guy, I hope you realize that. Most men have some idea that ladies go through menstrual cycles once a month."  
"Ugh. Well, at least I don't have to go through this my whole life," Padma said, although not very brightly. "Being a girl sucks."  
"Hey, watch it, I'm younger than I used to be," Luna snapped irritably. Padma made a face.

Draco had put on his shirt before he even bothered to look at the clock.  
"Oh, _shit_."  
Somewhere a bell chimed five times.  
The library was, while not completely across the school, several floors above where he was standing at the moment. Zabini wasn't going to be too happy about this.  
Oh well, he was Draco Malfoy. He didn't care what people thought.  
In any case, he set off running, trying to slip his shoes on as he ran.

The parchment gave him an itch to look. But he didn't. Harry folded it away in his pocket where it belonged, not meant to be used to find out who people really were. He winced as he realized that Voldemort would probably give much to have the Marauder's Map, to find out what secret lives Hogwarts' residents were living. His own father, accompanied by his friends, had created a tool which could be used for dark purposes.  
But then again, loads of things could be used for the dark side. Wands, for example. They did what their master intended, be it good or evil.  
He folded his hands across his lap and propped his feet up on a table. It was then he noticed that Pansy was looking at him, frowning.  
"What was it you put it your pocket?" she asked, and he could tell she was trying to sound indifferent.  
"Bit of parchment," he said, shrugging, while the gears in his head were put into action as he tried to figure out exactly who would be curious about the Map, or even recognize it.  
In his head, he thought of Lupin and hoped that he wasn't Pansy. Lupin would certainly recognize the Map. Again though, he wasn't a Slytherin. Harry sighed and slumped further into his chair, closing his eyes.

"Where the hell have you been?" Ron was looking at Draco with the utmost disgust, books on Transfiguration piled in heaps around him.  
"Running here to meet you," Draco panted, wiping the back of his hand on his forehead and trying to pull Potter's horribly messy hair out of his eyes. "You should be flattered that I ran up four staircases and halfway across the castle to get here. I'm only ten minutes late."  
"I should also be turned off at the fact that you forgot about me until a clock chimed, then?"  
Draco tried his best to look hurt. "I try so hard for you, Zabini." He did his best imitation of puppy eyes. Ron blanched.  
"Potter's face isn't meant for conveying that sort of emotion, Malfoy."  
"Yes, but I don't really care."  
"Uh huh. So are you going to help me with this assignment or not?"  
"Sure. Is that the one on human transfiguration we got on Thursday?"  
"Uh..." Ron looked down at his book. "That's what this is?"  
Draco wiped his brow a second time. Coaching Zabini was going to be harder than he originally thought.

He leaned over the table, looking at the page Ron had flipped to in his Transfiguration book. Ron was looking up at him expectantly, so he pulled a chair over and seated himself next to him.  
He was pointing out some of the finer points of the wand movement one uses to change another into a skunk when Ron said, "I know."  
"Hunh?"  
"I said I know how to do this. This is getting really boring."  
Draco blinked.  
"If you didn't need help in the first place, then why did you–"  
"Erm."  
Waiting for Ron to say something, Draco crossed his arms. He could hear the ticking of the clock, marking the seconds he could be away plotting another way to completely screw up Potter's life, just not in a way that would affect the Slytherin directly. He was beginning to notice how closed-in the section of library Ron had chosen to meet Draco in was. There was only a two-foot opening between two bookshelves, and they were surrounded by two walls and several shelves.  
Ron leaned over, kissed him, then shot out of his seat, dropping his wand in his haste to get out. He banged his shoulder against the shelf next to the opening and fell backwards, head landing at Draco's feet. His eyes were squeezed shut.  
Draco raised an eyebrow. _At least Zabini has impeccably good taste_.


	8. Chapter 8: Nightmare

Hello 'dere!

Some notes about this chapter:  
-My writing, especially in this chapter and between 7 and this, is so, so blotchy. I'm very sorry. There's not all that much I can do, my writing style is changing constantly, even if I only have a break of about a day or two in between paragraphs. This chapter is especially dark. Well, not dark, but... uh... something like it. A close cousin. Lol.  
-There is one spot where Pansy refers to her previous self, Snape, with male pronouns. This was intentional. It makes it so much easier to write and comprehend, and, really, she is refering to Snape, so it is logical, too.  
-Maybe Snape is in character? Maybe he's not. Gah, I dunno, I'll find a good balance at some point. If you think about it, being someone else AND anonymous would change someone... you know... no, that is NOT a lame excuse, dangit....  
-Once again, I remind you that anyone referred to as Draco is Draco-in-Harry. See the note in chapter 7.  
-Different people are referring to different people as Zabini. You'll just have to take it in context. For now, Draco refers to Blaise-in-Ron as Zabini. (Isn't Zabini an awesome name? Zaaa-biiii-niiii....)  
-Nooooo, I'm not trying to make a love triangle, mon. This story is literally writing itself. (Well, no, not literally. That would be pretty freaky, heh.)  
-The little scene with Blaise and Draco in this chapter is. So. Cheesy.  
-Oh, and I'm leaving this chapter off evilly. Muahahaha. The more reviews I get, the quicker I'll get writing. ;)  
-Please don't kill me for being so slow! I just finished performing in a musical, mon. And there's only more where that came from.

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**ataraxis** (yepper ;) thanks for the review), **pixyfairy120**, **Kaaera** (looking forward to it too, it'll be less awkward to write ^^), **LeeLeePotter** (I'll get there soon!), **n snape**, **Moni**, **Ronda-Silverpaw** (that part is BZ/BM, for clarification - not BZ/HP), **Ruth**, **Kouryou Sanomi** (hehe thanks :) ), **Lady Doncaster** (wheee I won the "Priceless" award... thanks for the review! ^^), **BURN THE R.U.M** (yes he can! He and Ron are especially thick in book 4 though... lmao), **Maxwell Demon** (I'm trying to make the romance unfold at a somewhat regular rate, which is especially hard for a inexperienced 13-year-old to do, lol. ;) Ack, gramatical errors? Where? :S Thanks for the review, in any case :D ), **Fuzzy-Bumpkins**, **Kursed SeeD**, **eth**, **Necromant** (thanks!), **Lady Darkness13** (;) not yet!), **JadeDawn** (thanks!), **mistik-elf13** (yes he is! He's our comic relief for now, lol, it'll get more serious when I finally get Voldie in like I wanted to in chapter 6... cough...).

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

.~*~.

Chapter _Eight_ (woot!)

Pansy sighed silently, cursing hormones and all they were worth. If it wasn't for Miss Parkinson's damn hormones she wouldn't be in this damn predicament, trying not to act on a crush on a teenager.  
She blanched, the truth ringing in her mind again. This was horrible. So bad. People who are forty years old do not go and become attracted to teenagers. It wasn't right. It was unnatural.  
She'd been openly admitting it to herself. She had something of a "crush" on Mr. Zabini. Damnit. She didn't fall for people. She was stronger than that. Acting on any attraction to this teenager would be molesting, nothing more, nothing less.

_But you'd be anonymous too_, said a toneless voice in the back of her mind. _No_, she tried, _no, I would still be taking advantage of someone._ She gulped. _And being taken advantage of. Once Dumbledore fixes this, I'll never meet this person knowingly again._  
As Snape, she'd never been one to take to "flings" or short-term relationships. Everything meant so much more in the short life that he had ahead of him. It was too short to waste. And, growing up, he'd learned that Death Eaters shouldn't love. Even though his parents never did. But for some twisted reason he'd loved and respected his father. And then he was gone. Subject to Voldemort's annoyance. There were plenty more Death Eaters, after all.  
Hadn't Lily left Snape the day she found out he was a Death Eater?  
Pansy glared at the printed words she'd long ago stopped reading. Every paragraph blurred together at the sting of tears she felt. _Oh, another joy of being female_, she thought briefly, before they took control of her.

The first thing Harry saw when he opened his eyes was Pansy, head in her arms, back shaking. He heard no gasps for air, but knew she was crying.  
His mind and body were being ripped in two. His mind told him to get the hell out of there, that Pansy wouldn't appreciate it if he noticed her crying. But his body wanted to help her, maybe find out why she was crying and make it better.  
This was disgusting him. _Slytherin_. The word rang in his head, like a horrible bug that he'd just discovered squashed into his pillow. Pansy had said she was a Slytherin. All Slytherins were bad.  
"What's wrong?" he ventured, squeezing his eyes shut for a second or two, then daring to open them.  
"Get the hell away from me," she told him, the words buried underneath her arms. "Get the hell away from me."  
"I didn't do anything!" Harry exclaimed, anger welling up in his chest from nowhere.  
"You didn't have to!"  
"Uhh...?"

A second year hummed as he opened his door to go to dinner, saw the scene over the edge of the banister, and silently returned to his room. Neither Slytherin noticed him.  
There wasn't really silence. A clock ticked away somewhere, and outside somewhere, it had begun to rain, droplets battering softly against the castle, the sound a distant rumble in the cool of the dungeons. But Harry heard none of this. He waited for a response, any response.  
"Why?"  
"Huh?" Harry was beginning to feel stupid. His last two replies had been nothing but confused one-syllable words.  
"Why do you care?"  
The anger was draining, being replaced with tiredness. Pansy sat up jerkily, scrubbed at her eyes, then looked at him coolly. He realized he was supposed to answer.  
"I don't know. Because I do."  
"That's not the reason, though, is it Zabini?"

She felt guilty, using her Death Eater training on an innocent. She had no idea if he was lying or not, but she could sure act like she knew something he didn't want her to.  
"Er."  
It was amazing how quickly Miss Parkinson's body could go from self-pity to trying to get what she wanted. She noted this.  
"Hmm?"  
She leaned across the table, eyes like slits, feeling as though she wasn't really controlling herself. She and Zabini were mere centimeters apart now, as the other Slytherin had simply frozen. Pansy reached up and ran a hand down the side of his face, wondering what the hell had happened to self-control. The action had not been entirely sinister, but had been done with something of a mocking sneer on her face.  
"I'msorryI'lljustgonow," Harry choked out, before scrambling to his feet and disappearing into the corridor outside. Pansy lurched backwards into her sofa, feeling ill.  
_What just happened?_

"What the _hell_ was that?"  
The Slytherin common room had a main level, where all the fireplaces and sofas and winged armchairs were located. Over a small portion of the room was a balcony, connected to the room by stone stairs. This balcony was the level on which the dormitories, all fourteen of them, were. The rest of the common room was two levels high.  
Crabbe stood on the balcony, gripping the railing. Her knuckles had long ago turned white. Pansy slapped herself inwardly, wishing she'd noticed when they'd had a visitor.  
"What do you want?" she asked monotonously.  
Crabbe ignored her comment. "You're trying to seduce him, aren't you? You little b–"  
Pansy didn't hear the rest. _Seduce. Seduce. I wasn't trying to fucking seduce him.  
Then what were you doing?_  
"If I was, how would you be concerned?" She put on a sneer, although she didn't feel it. "What did I tell you? Ickle Padma has a crush on Blaise Zabini...."  
Crabbe tried to keep his face emotionless, but Pansy could tell by how much he was blinking that she had competition.  
_No. Padma can have him. I am not falling for... oh, blast it all._  
Her sneer widened, despite how she really wanted to glare daggers at him instead. Crabbe made an uncharacteristic squeak of frustration, and left the room, stomping.

Ron had been lying there for about two minutes and neither boy had done anything.  
Well, Ron had been picking at his shirt hem, and Draco had been studying his nails. Ron hadn't ventured far beyond opening his eyes yet, and Draco hadn't yet responded. Out loud, at least.  
_Yes, he has good taste. Not the ugliest thing in the world at least, although being kissed by Ron's body isn't an experience I'd like to repeat unknowingly in the near future. Wonder what'll happen when we go back to being Slytherins. Hmm... wonder how much longer I should keep him in suspense._  
"Malfoy...?"  
"Hmm?"  
"Could you get your shoe off my hair?"  
He jumped, a new habit Potter had given him. Moved his foot before starting to apologize, then realized how sappy that would seem.  
"Thanks."  
There was more silence while Ron stood and brushed himself off.

"So... Zabini."  
Ron looked up, biting his lip. Draco was really enjoying keeping him in suspense. They'd never really been great friends, but Malfoys didn't _make_ friends, so it was all fine in his book.  
He paused another moment to decide which route he should take. Embarrassing him could be fun, but if he went along with it he might find out more about the Slytherin, which could ultimately prove handy, especially if he was a traitor's son. If Draco ever did go back to Voldemort. It was pretty hard to forgive someone who wouldn't care if you were dead or alive. And his own father, who definitely had a part in all of this.  
Wearing a smirk, he stepped forward, so that the redhead was trapped between a bookcase and himself. One of his arms snaked around the other boy's waist. Ron thought he was going to kiss him, as his tongue wetted his lips in anticipation. "No." He placed a hand over his mouth, leaning forward, so that their noses were nearly touching. "You realize that you have know idea who I really am or can be?"

It had sounded a lot less cheesy in his head, but Ron bought it. He closed his eyes again, trying not to squirm. Draco's smirk widened. He took his hand away from the other boy's mouth, slinging it around the other side of his waist, bringing them closer.  
"Who can you be?"  
Draco closed the tiny gap that had remained and then they were kissing again. This only lasted for a minute before Draco pulled back enough to speak, not needing to gasp for air like Ron did. "Put your arms around my neck, bastard."  
Ron did this hurriedly, but Draco didn't kiss him again. He stepped back, causing Ron to stumble and him to sneer.  
"You'll get a second chance sometime soon," he told him, before exiting the library. The promise left Ron shivering in anticipation.

Harry slid down the stone wall right outside the common room, legs shaking and breath hitched. How could Pansy... the train of thought broke off as another one came forth. Had she been mocking him, or did she, somewhere deep inside, harbor feelings for him?  
_This is stupid_, Harry thought, glancing at the stretch of wall that opened into the Slytherin common room and frowning. He let himself smirk a little, wondering if Pansy would be flustered at all if he went back in there and kissed her. She might or might not, she seemed like a right ditz sometimes, and at other times....  
Yes, it was appealing, but the butterflies trying to get out of his stomach were telling him it was too blunt. He was known for being blunt as his prior self. For everything but girls, sure.  
And then there was that constant nagging about who she really was. He wanted no part in kissing Flitwick or someone equally disturbing.  
Dinner was over. Students were returning from the hall now. The clock hadn't struck six yet, but he knew it would soon. He waited for a crowd of Slytherins, and snuck inside with them. Pansy was still at her table, but he doubted she noticed him, as her eyes were cast off into space as she rested her head. He slipped behind the sofa and up to the common room to take a shower and prepare for bed.  
Tomorrow would have classes. A distraction. No more of this nonsense, he told himself. No more of this damn obsession.

He pulled his shirt over his head, and paused, for reassurance, to look in the mirror at his left arm. The pale skin glowed, no dark mark disturbing it.  
After his shower, he pulled his four-poster closed, shutting out the world, at least for the night.

Cold.  
_Shit, where am I?_  
A mansion overlooked a dreary cemetery, and he frowned. This wasn't–this couldn't be–  
Red eyes opened, slits, in the blackness in front of him. Followed by other pairs of eyes–smaller, different colors. But the red ones were the ones that made him want to scream.  
"How is Dumbledore protecting you now, Potter?"  
Jeers met the cold words which he knew were coming from the red eyes. Then there was again silence. "Speak, boy!"  
He backed away, into other Death Eaters in the circle. They pushed him back into the middle, with Voldemort, laughing.  
"_Reminisce_."  
He hadn't heard the incantation before. But memories that weren't his own were being yanked out of him, clawing at his memory and leaving it in tatters. They all spiraled into the wand that he knew Voldemort was holding, even though it wasn't visible to his eyes.  
He didn't try to stop them. He was too stunned to care. What was going on? What was his master doing to him?

Draco Malfoy woke up in a cold sweat.

.~*~.

Review? *Tilts head*


	9. Chapter 9: The Letter

Aloha!

Some notes about this chapter:  
-I'm finally getting to a part of the plot I _planned_! Go me! This was supposed to be chapter six, lol.  
-Yes, Pansy visits Dumbledore. I didn't have Dumbledore talk that much because I'm not too good at writing it. His character is too bubbly, it's weird. Ah well.   
-I made up a secret room. --" I was hoping I wouldn't have to, but I figured Harry wouldn't want to drag those two to, say, the Room of Requirement.  
-Dang, if I keep 2-3 weeks in between chapters, I get loads of reviews. *Evil grin* Lucky for you, that's not the reason I've been slow - I have school, original fiction and poetry, and a comic that I need to keep up with too. (But hey, if you want to see the comic, it's on my website. *Winks* Gotta love _Margin Man!_.)  
-I will try and get to the HPSS "romance" within the next 2-3 chapters... I have to get there a -certain- way in order to lead up to the dramatic climax. Lol. And then there's always Voldie to hold me up... *makes face* but he could actually prove useful.

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Lady Darkness13** (this soon enough? ^^""), **Aria-fic** (that's good to hear, I don't really think I'm that good at staying in-character. I've bookmarked the story you suggested I read and I'll try and read it as soon as I can find the chance. :) ), **Aerielle5** (lol, thanks), **Rayn** (Wow, you reviewed every chapter? Thanks. ^^ Eeee I'm "worthy of reading", woot!), **Prophetess Of Hearts** (yepper, Draco's a prat :D Love to write his character though), **risi** (not really, the "real plan" is being developed mostly as I write, lol. The Padma-in-Crabbe [Cradma? Pabbe?]/Harry bit was a bit of an unexpected speed bump... oh well... I'll work it somehow :D), **Necromant** (thanks!), **penny**, **Winnie2** (yes :D), **Ruth** (I can't tellll you... but I have that part all planned out in my head... as well as when they find out who each other really is... *evil grin*), **LeeLeePotter** (sooner or later!), **Flashfire** (well, that's usually a good sign, lol), **Kaaera** (hehe yes, it really is. It'll happen sooner or later! I'm sorry I'm so slow, but I really am having fun taunting you guys... just kidding! ^^"), **n snape**, **ataraxis** (*grins*), **Lisa13** (lol! Well, the idea was originally to make it utterly unexpected for Harry, since canon Harry isn't gay, lol. I dunno, Snape being Pansy seemed to fit with the rest), **c[R]ud[E]dly** (heh... I'll figure out Padma's situation later...), **BURN THE R.U.M** (well, Zabini just pretended to not understand homework to get Draco alone with him. *Shrugs* Wasn't planned or anything, but I like it. ^^"), **Doneril** (soon, yes! :) ), **borne-shadow-childe** (uhm, okay), **Bellatrix Rules My World** (thanks and okay! :D), **Awen** (dang, the demand is greater than the supply [of time I have to write], isn't it? :S), **Kursed SeeD** (okay!), **Fuzzy-Bumpkins** (yepper! And that bit is going to screw things up for poor ol' Moldyshorts... er, Voldemort...), **ManicReversed** (*nods* that's the idea, lol. He won't give in yet though.), **Devona Wolfe** (aww, thanks. *grins*).

Whew. I *really* need to space those out next chapter.

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

.~*~.

Chapter ***N**i_n_e*****

Breakfast was normally a quiet affair at Hogwarts. Owls would swoop in and land in the bacon, or drop letters and newspapers onto the French toast, which they would bounce off of into the soup. It was like a game to some of the owls since the students had been switched, how many dishes they could turn useless with a letter or two.  
This particular morning was particularly dull. It was a Monday, meaning Harry had Care of Magical Creatures first, followed by Charms. He figured he could finish, or at least begin the first class' homework in Charms. All they ever did was argue in that class–and most of the students could do their charming better than the new Flitwick. Surely he wouldn't be noticed; or, if the teacher even noticed, bothered.  
And these were the thoughts he'd been having before the letter landed on the top of his half-finished toast.

Harry had jumped, and then stared at the letter. It was made of thick parchment–he guessed that the parchment of the letter had been folded and stamped into its own envelope. He looked up and watched a large falcon swooping out the window, surrounded by owls of various colors.  
Then he squinted at the seal while peeling the butter-slick letter off of his toast. He thumbed the dent where the owl had been holding it absently while trying to make out the stamp. Behind him, he heard a Hufflepuff yelling to an owl about throwing a letter into his soup. Somewhere, a clock made known that it was currently eight and he had fifteen minutes to get going.  
Then he realized what the seal was. The Dark Mark.  
"Shit," he muttered, turning the letter over. In the spidery handwriting of who he assumed to be one of Voldemort's followers was 'Blaise Zabini.'  
He imagined he should probably hand it over to the real Zabini before reading it. But it was nagging at him, practically calling out 'unfold me!' to him. At the same time, his more wary instincts told him to be careful, in case it was cursed. After all, hadn't Ron said something about his father being a traitor? What if Voldemort had stuck a portkey inside? Or something worse?  
_I have to ask Zabini first._  
He looked up to the Gryffindor table, past his forgotten toast. Ron, who was usually was already watching him when he sensed trouble, had his eyes on... his body? _Malfoy?_

"Come in!"  
_The old man really is too cheery for a Monday morning_, were Pansy's first thoughts as she entered the headmaster's office. Goyle was seated in Dumbledore's usual place, sipping tea and opening a small jar of lemon drops.  
It was a rather scary sight.  
"Miss Parkinson, what an unexpected visitor! Do have a seat."  
Pansy awkwardly sat in the now plaid chair that sat across from Goyle's desk. The upholstery on this particular chair was always changing, and it usually grated her nerves a lot more than it did today. Hey, it was better plaid than it had been on her last Valentine's Day visit. Pink hearts really didn't suit the chair.  
"Lemon drop?"  
She brushed the question aside. "Al–Dumbledore, I've been studying the unfinished wards on the castle, and I think I might have found something which may prove useful."  
"Ah, Severus! How has it been, reliving your teenage years?"

She gritted her teeth in irritation. "Please, Albus. I've been researching the affects malfunctioning wards have on curses. I assume the Dark Lord and his followers did their dirty work with simple invisibility cloaks and a small variation of the killing curse, creating a mass-killing-curse meant to blot out all inhabitants of the castle." She inhaled. "Now, we know that all _humans_–no other creatures, according to the house elves I have asked–switched bodies, and this... 'replacement'... is one of the aftereffects I found with more in-depth research." She exhaled. "Using these results, I believe I can find out just how far along we were with the wards on the castle, leading us to a countercurse which will, hopefully, undo the 'replacement' without killing us as the curse was intended to do." She inhaled. "Of course, the only minor setback is the fact that the curse was placed from inside the castle. That means that testing anything would be pointless, as we would need the _exact same circumstances_–same time, same volume of space, same number of people and animals in the hallway, the list goes on." She exhaled. "But we must keep the security of the outgoing communication good. If he catches wind that we have all switched bodies rather than remained unaffected, he will know that disabling the wards will kill us all."

Goyle had been listening with rapt attention, and he now nodded. "Yes. That makes sense–you certainly are determined, working on this even with these minor setbacks," he said, waving around vaguely and grinning. "I was hoping hormones would open you up a little."  
Pansy spluttered indignantly. "Spies don't 'open up,' Albus."  
"Oh, I am aware," he said, still managing to make Goyle's eyes twinkle. Pansy wondered how many hours he'd spent in front of the mirror, learning how to make them do that again. "I don't think you should pass up the opportunity you've been given with our young Mr. Zabini though."  
_How much does this man_ know?  
"Now, off with you, Severus."  
Shooed from the headmaster's office, Pansy had no choice but to get up, walk out, and be left right where she'd started. She'd forgotten to ask if the headmaster could tell her what particular wards he'd used. _Bother, I'm not going back in to ask._

When he'd reached the Gryffindor table, the steps seeming to take forever, Harry had only had to show the seal to Ron before he'd abruptly stood, grabbed the letter and his shoulder, and pulled him out of the Hall with him.  
"When the hell did you get this?"  
"A falcon just dropped it in my breakfast," Harry answered, shrugging Ron's hand off, but his grip was too strong to budge. He was squeezing his shoulder so hard it had already gone numb.  
"Shit shit shit shit...."  
"What is it?"  
Draco had just come in, and asked his question in a lazy drawl, leaning on Ron's shoulder and glancing down at the letter. Then he was silent. Thinking.  
"Get off." Ron pulled out of Draco's lean, while at the same time, unclenching from Harry's shoulder. Harry backstepped.

"But I thought you _wanted_ me," the other Gryffindor whined. Harry, forgotten, blinked.  
"I _do_, just not right this moment. And if you don't recall, the owner of the body _you're_ currently using is standing right over there."  
"'Ello Potter. I hope you don't mind that I'm engaging your body in gay–"  
"Merlin, Malfoy, shut up for a moment. Do you think he's cursed it?"  
"Gay _what_?"  
"Scan it, stupid."  
"Ah, yes." Ron began muttering odd Latin words, doing a familiar flick and swish. Nothing seemed to be happening, which Harry took for a good thing.

"Oh, and Potter," Draco began, turning to the Slytherin. "What the hell is up with your nightmares?"  
"Oh, shit. You've been having nightmares?"  
"Last night. Voldemort used some 'reminisce' spell on me. What does it do?"  
Harry was nervously wringing his hands while he thought, but stopped when Ron glared over at him. Obviously he didn't like his body looking vulnerable.  
"Did you even try to, you know, block it?"  
"I was too busy being confused, if you'd like to know."  
"Seems clean," Ron said.  
They silently watched Malfoy exiting the Hall. He nervously rushed past their stares towards the commons to get his books.

"Come on, we need to find somewhere more private to open it," Ron growled. The prospect of missing Care of Magical Creatures, one of the few classes that had gotten harder with the switch, wasn't all that gloomy to Harry.  
Thus, ten minutes later they were to be found in a hidden room in the astronomy tower, which, while the size of a fairly-large closet, had light and a table and two armchairs.  
Harry watched in confusion as the two Gryffindors across from him took the same seat, Draco flinging his arm around Ron's shoulders. They seemed oblivious to his oblivion.  
"Here. You open it."  
"Why me?" Harry looked down at the letter that had been slid across the tiny table to him.  
"Because neither of us want any unknown curses on us, Gryffindork."  
"If you don't recall, you two are the Gryffindorks at the moment," Harry mumbled, but broke the seal anyway, in one quick movement.

All three boys froze, waiting.  
When nothing happened, they simultaneously sighed in relief.

"Okay, give it back."  
"Er."  
"I don't say 'er'. Don't ever say 'er'."  
Draco had started reading the letter as Harry and Ron bickered.  
"Prat."  
"Idiot."  
"Shut up," Draco interjected, leaning out of Ron's vision, eyes flitting across the paper.  
"What does it _say_?"  
"He wants you to join the Death Eaters," Draco said, incredulously.  
"_What_?" Harry and Ron asked in unison.  
Draco looked at Ron. Harry looked at Ron. Ron stared at the letter that was still out of his line of vision.  
"Gimme that!"  
There was a short scuffle as Draco tried to dangle the parchment out of Ron's reach, and a shorter one as Draco tried to get it back from Harry when he plucked it right out of his hand.

_B. Zabini,  
I have held a recent meeting with my followers and they have decided to spare your father, provided you join my ranks as a loyal Death Eater. By doing this, you can repay the debts that your father has brought to your family name.  
If you refuse to do this, I will make certain–_

"_Give me my effing letter_!"  
There was silence as both Harry and Draco watched Ron read. When he finished the brief read, he looked up, visibly unchanged.  
"I don't care if there's some 'debt' on my family name. They can repay their own debt."  
He crinkled the parchment up and opened the window to throw it out, but had second thoughts. With a flick of his wand, the letter was gone in a burst of green flame.  
"They're going to come after _you_ though, Zabini. You're your father's only heir. He won't want your sister, he'll want _you_."  
"I can protect myself. What are you anyway? A Death Eater turned spy?"  
"I'm unclassifiable," Draco said proudly.

"Lovely," Harry broke in mildly. "What does this have to do with me?"  
"Nothing. Just stay out of the way of anyone you _know_ is a Death Eater."  
"As easy as I wish it would be to stay out of Malfoy's way–"  
"You don't know of any other Death Eaters?" Now, Ron looked visibly paler.  
"What about Parkinson? She seems pretty distant. Do you know who she is?"  
"I've been wanting to find out," Harry answered carefully, as casually as he could.  
"You fancy her," Ron added, immediately.  
"God, Potter, are you really that stupid?"  
"What? It was him who said it, not–"

There were footsteps above them. They looked up at the trap door in the ceiling, not even daring to breathe.  
"Shit, how are we going to get out if they have a daytime class?"  
Harry shrugged. "Wait until they're on the roof?"  
"How're we supposed to know when that is?"  
"_Lumos_."  
The room became slightly less dim. Harry poked up on the trap door, and slowly raised it, peeking out.  
One pair of feet disappeared onto the roof. There didn't seem to be any other shoe noises.  
He threw open the door as softly as he could, and pulled himself out before looking behind him.

"What're you doing here?"  
Harry snapped his head around to see Padma, halfway through tying a bootlace.  
"Ron! Shh, we just need to get out."  
"Well, hurry up, they're coming right back in. They're seeing how much in rained the other day. Something to do with how visible the stars are supposed to be. I wasn't listening."  
"Help me get them out."  
"You were in the makeout closet with these two?"  
All three made a face.  
"No! We were just looking at a letter, s'all. Thanks Ron," and they were out of the room without being detected.


	10. Chapter 10: Lunch with a Slytherin, II

You are NOT halucinating! It's chapter ten, served to you four days after the update on 4/14! :D

Hola!

Some notes about this chapter:  
-This was unplanned, but it was something I needed for my plan to work.  
-Yes, this came out fast, it's not your imagination.  
-I still don't particularly like this chapter, though. Padma-in-Crabbe is a bit _too_ obsessive. Although, you never know what those crazy Ravenclaws will come up with next... *grins* And yes, that was the map. Just because she's Parvati's sister doesn't make her stupid.  
-This is not going to be one of those fan fictions were Draco gets all goody-two-shoesy. He's still a Death Eater for Voldemort, not a spy for Dumbledore... but dancing between them, too. Also, he and Harry won't ever become great friends... they will [eventually] reach an understanding, though.  
-In dialog, characters will often refer to the person IN the body if they know who's in there, not the body. Just thought I'd clear that up. If this could actually happen, most people would do that too. I like to keep it at least a *little* believable, especially since it's something as crazy as HPSS slash, lmao.  
-I think... *tears* I have... w-writer's block.... *sheepish*

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**LeeLeePotter** - :P I can write Dumbledore if I need to, it just doesn't work when you've been listening to sucky music while you write. This danged pop is so addictive, even if Fefe Dobson can't *sing* sing... yes. *Clears throat* I need to get my Branch albums back into Winamp soon....  
**ESP** - Yes, a lot of people think this story is weird. I should be proud. :D  
**Devona Wolfe** - You got lucky again, lol. Four days. That's got to be the fastest I've ever updated a chapter of *anything*.  
**Necromant** - Okay! XD  
**Winnie2** - Yes, he is; he doesn't understand that A) Harry does get very violent nightmares sometimes (_but not as often as many fan fictions make it seem! Gah! Switched is NOT going to be one of those! Yes._) and B) Voldemort actually, like, got into Harry's thoughts in that nightmare. Remember, when Harry was taking Occlumency in book 5, Snape told him it was Remedial Potions... *grins*  
**risi** - Just because Blaise-in-Ron burnt that letter doesn't mean that part of the plot's gone, it will be brought up again in chapters coming up. As for Dumbledore's comment to Sevvie-in-Pansy: he knows that they're interested in each other (*sniggers*) but he doesn't really know who is in Blaise's body. He's not that magical, lol.  
**penny**  
**Greyhound Master** - Erm, how can you make it to chapter nine and not know the pairings?? x_x  
**Elmindrea-al'Thor** - Thanks :D  
**Kaaera** - Lmao. I just wrote an outline, I'm not following it to the T or anything [obviously]. Heh heh. That would be impossible.  
**Fuzzy-Bumpkins**  
**Sky** - Yes! I despise plotlessness. Abhor. Hate. Severely dislike. (And yeah, it's only coincidence that my first ffn story and slash story was plotless... cough... don't read it, it sucks. --")  
**mistik-elf13**  
**Ruth** - Yep, the three of them are stuck working together now! Muahaha!  
**Awen** - Alright. ;)

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

.~*~.

Chapter **T**_e_n

"You took us to a snog closet, Potter?"  
Harry ignored Draco's amused words as they walked down hallways with classes in session behind doors on either side. They reached an unused classroom, and he locked and silenced the door before turning back to them.  
"Now," Ron sat cross-legged on the desk next to the one Draco was leaning against, "You fancy her, don't you?"  
"What does that have to do with any of this?"

"Not much," he answered, shrugging. "I just like analyzing these sort of things."  
Draco gave him a sarcastic look from his seat. "Then you'll get to the important stuff, I assume?"  
"Shut up." He looked back at Harry expectantly.  
"Sure, I like her. Let's talk about the damn letter, I still want to make it to my second class."  
"Potter, worried about classes? Never thought I'd live to see the day," mumbled Draco.  
"Don't worry, Potter, you've still got about an hour and a half until your next class."

"Ugh. Letter."  
"Fine," Draco drawled finally. "You take all the fun out of things."  
"I know," Harry said, flashing him a grin before sitting on another desk. "Now, what am I supposed to do?"  
Nearly Headless Nick stuck a head through the door, but retreated when all three turned to glare at him.  
"You might need to become a Death Eater," Draco said, shrugging. "Throwing away your life, it's not all that bad."

Both boys glanced over at him, somewhat concerned from his strong, sadistic statement. "Eh, you okay Malfoy?"  
"I'm fine, Zabini."  
"Well... I don't exactly wish to become a Death Eater."  
"You rather be dead or a servant to the Dark Lord?"  
"Dead."  
"How the hell are you a Slytherin?" Both of them ignored Harry's question, of course. "And if you don't remember, _I'm_ the one who will have to get the stupid Dark Mark if you were to become one. If you make me do that, I swear I'll go mad."  
"We know, savior."

There was silence for a few minutes, during which Ron leaned against the legs he'd brought up to his chest. He stared forward at the chalkboard, and Harry had to note how he'd never seen the real Ron look so pensive or gloomy. His half-lidded eyes were definitely the same that Ron had when he yawned, but they conveyed a stronger emotion. Stress about living and dying and concern for others. Zabini had to have some concern left in there, especially from the way he'd said 'savior' with such a hidden sadness.  
Harry looked out the window. In the distance was the Quidditch Pitch, weeds growing out of control. Some ivy had started to take over one of the Hufflepuff stands.  
He heard a desk wobbling, and turned to see that Draco had walked over to Ron's desk and held up his chin, looking into the half-lidded eyes. The kiss that followed made Harry uncomfortable, and he knew he should've been staring out the window instead of watching his and his best friend's body snogging.

The thought made him red in the face. What if they were to do something in public? The rest of the school would think he and Ron were gay and an 'item'. He bit his lip and snapped his head back to looking out the window as the pair kissed behind him.  
It made him think of Pansy. Had he really admitted that he liked her? No, he hadn't. That was to make them shut up. For once he didn't desperately wonder who Pansy was. He just felt like he needed someone. Pansy seemed as distant and vulnerable as Ron just had, if you bothered to look past her outward stubbornness.  
He decided that he didn't care who Pansy was, even if she was Slytherin. He'd just seen it. Slytherins could be every bit as gentle as other houses, even in other bodies. Maybe especially in other bodies.

After the Charms class which Harry made it to with five minutes to spare, Harry walked outside during lunch to the patch of lake where he saw Pansy sitting and staring out at the water.  
Her curly gold hair was braided today, which whoever was in her body had managed to do quite nicely, like they were used to it. He leaned on the rock she sat against, watching steam rise from the lake. She looked up at him.  
"Why aren't you in eating lunch with the other Slytherins?"  
"I could ask the same of you, but I won't," Harry answered, smiling. Her brows knit together.

She heard the crunching of teenage boots through grass even before Blaise had been close. Teenagers were so ungraceful.  
Looking up at him, she'd asked him why he'd left the other Slytherins to come out here. He'd answered cheerfully, without actually answering the original question.  
_Why is he back?_ She wondered, sighing silently. _I shocked him, didn't I? Tried to take advantage of him, like Patil said. This is wrong. So very wrong._

"Do you do this every day?" Harry asked, hopping over the rock and seating himself next to her. His chest fluttered, but he squashed whatever butterflies were in there. He was going to do this.  
"Lately, yes, I have."  
"Why? Isn't it lonely?"  
"That's precisely why I do it."  
Her words seemed familiar. He shrugged off the thought anyway.  
"So, you only do it to distance yourself from everyone?" He swallowed, this was sounding incredibly cheesy. "Even me?"  
She gave him a sharp look.

_What the hell is he up to?_

"What are you trying to accomplish, Zabini?"  
Harry shrugged, forcing himself to keep looking into her eyes instead of out at the lake. "I'm not really, sure, actually."  
"You didn't get the wrong idea from yesterday, did you?"  
He shrugged. "I might've. But... er," his gaze still fell to the grass. "Two can play at that game, can't they?"  
"What are you trying to do?" she asked, voice slightly hitched, as she stumbled trying to get up, hands slipping on the still-dewy grass.  
She landed in his lap and froze.  
_Now or never, Potter_, said a voice in his head that sounded a lot like Draco.  
But he was stuck too.

They watched one another for a few seconds, only centimeters apart, but Pansy slowly rose, brushing mud off of her knee and then remembering to clean it with a spell. She started to walk away, decidedly not looking back at him, but Harry caught hold of her arm.  
"No... no. I came out here to do this, I might as well go through with it."  
He pulled her to face him, and they were kissing.

_Inexperienced brat_, Pansy's mind was screaming. _Insolent teenager. Innocent teenager._  
Harry drew back at the slap that seemed to have come out of nowhere.  
"What was that for?" he asked, incredulously. "I thought you _wanted_ to be kissed, Parkinson!"  
She closed her eyes. Harry impatiently waited for her to respond.  
They opened. "No, Zabini. This is wrong."  
"I don't care who you are," he said quickly.  
"That makes you sound desperate. And no, I think you would definitely care who I am. Especially being a Gryffindor."  
"I didn't mean it in a desperate way, Parkinson. I mean, I fell for you, not your name. I don't know who you really are. I really don't mind."  
_Fell for me?_ She stared at him wearily. _He will deny this when he finds out who I am,_ she thought resignedly. _Teenagers' feelings can change in an instant._

"Oh, never mind!" Harry turned around. He had to make himself walk.  
"You will," she said. "When you find out who I am–"  
"Why don't you just _tell_ me, for Merlin's sake? Then I'll know! Unless you're, like, Flitwick, I seriously don't think I'd care who you are. Seventh year Slytherin? Big deal?"  
"That seriously lowers my chances then," she answered sorely. "Since I'm no longer a seventh year."  
Harry blinked. How could a student be past seventh year?  
She walked away, unstopped this time by Harry.  
_I feel incredibly thick,_ he decided. _I really need to get a yearbook and eliminate names to come up with the right person. Or look at the Map... but that's cheating. I won't._  
"Well," he muttered. "I went through with it."

Pansy slumped against the wall of the common room. Crabbe was already in the common room, looking at something tucked inside his newspaper. When he saw Pansy, he stood.  
"What're you doing here?"  
"Getting my books?" Pansy shook her hair over her shoulder.  
"I know who you are."  
"Eh?" She turned around to look at Padma, confused. "Why would you think that?"  
"You're molesting him." Crabbe was grinning from ear to ear, in a dangerously malicious way. Pansy took a step backwards automatically. "I know who he is, too."  
"What the hell are _you_ trying to do, Patil?"

Outside, Harry stared out at the lake, refusing to look down at his feet. He needed to practice doing that. Lately, whenever he said something he didn't really want to, his eyes had slipped downward. No longer.

Crabbe laughed. "Make your precious Zabini understand exactly why he wouldn't want you."  
"You've gone mad."  
He shrugged. "I know."  
Outside, a bell rang. They were late for classes. Neither moved.  
Finally, Pansy shook her head and started up the stairs to her dormitory. Crabbe followed her, still grinning, and used his wand to lock the door behind her, effectively pinning her in.  
"What the hell are you doing?" she whispered, trying to back further into the door. She had no idea where this sudden panic had come from. She blamed it on being a girl.  
"I should ask you what _you're_ doing with _him_, Severus Snape."

Pansy kept her features even, except for the eyebrow she raised.  
"Funny, Patil."  
"Quit trying to pretend you're not, I know you are," she said. "I have proof."  
"I'm so very honored that you think I'm the greasy Potions professor. Now, if you'll let me get to class...."  
"Why didn't it work?"  
"Eh?"  
"I'm not telling you," Crabbe said bitterly, snatching a piece of parchment from inside the fold of the Daily Prophet she'd been reading. Pansy squinted, then doubted what she saw.  
_No, it couldn't be._

.~*~.

Review? :D


	11. Chapter 11: Realizations and Reminders

Hallo!

I really shouldn't be posting this so soon. This is such a freaking _long_ chapter. I really should have split this up and be serving it in two (maybe even three... this is the better part of ten pages) chapters. So much serious plot development happens here, it's not funny.

Some notes about this chapter:  
-Honestly, I feel like I'm going so ut of character, even if it might not be apparent to you guys (too caught up in the "whoa, they kissed!" bit, aren't you? ;P). Merlin, the day that Harry uses the word 'pivotal' in his thoughts is the day Hermione gets a B.  
-THREE DAYS, TEN PAGES! You *so* shouldn't ever expect this much, this fast again, lol.   
-My birthday is on May 4th! Haha yeah, just thought I'd let ya'll know... *winks*  
-I have already decided some of the things that will be separate mini-fics. Crabbe and Pansy's fight, Neville-in-?'s internal battle (a little poetic bit... honestly, he was put it the most ironic body, you probably already know who he is). I may be writing one of them soon, I really do want to decide for myself what all Crabbe and Pansy's fight consisted of.  
-Yes, people, I am notorious (sp?) for cliff-hangers. I know. It's the same way in the novel I'm writing, you'll see if you buy it when it's published. (Sadly, no, it's not slash, lol. *hears people going "ew, het!"*) *Gives winning grin*  
-I made up some crap about the Dark Marks, I hope that it at least is somewhat believable. --"

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
You're finding out about Hermione and Neville in this chapter, so they'll be listed next chapter.

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Necromant** - Whoa, calm down, here's a sizable chunk for ya.  
**crudedly** - He figures it out finally here. He may be incredibly thick, but don't you just love Harry? *Grins*  
**Devona Wolfe** - Lmao, yes, it kind of did. And you got lucky again! XD You watch, Snape's not been entirely outed yet. Harry does that _for_ Padma.  
**Elmindrea-al'Thor **- Yes! You will see Hermione in this chapter! ^^  
**leeLeePotter** - Hahaha. You see, it's Sevvie's Death Eater training - or at least that's my excuse - he can control his facial features to a T, making Padma think that the Map didn't work.  
**Ronda-Silverpaw** - Correct!  
**Katie Lupin Black** - Padma from the Map. Our Sevvie-in-Pansy is still a bit in the dark. Anyway, Draco knows who Harry is because of Blaise - neither of them could figure out the Map, so remember when Blaise returned it to Harry?  
**Kaaera** - *Sighs* I wish I had muses. I just have... uh... crappy pop music?... yeah....   
**Ruth01** - Yes he will... and no, Pansy doesn't know who Harry is.  
**selua** - Thanks, and okay. :)  
**Winnie2** - I'd bet that Ravenclaws are excellent at blackmailing, but Padma's above that sort of thing.  
**Cliffe** - Whoooo someone who thinks my characterization is right on! Go me! I think the writers' block comes _now_ though. --"  
**risi** - It won't take him long at all - and yup, that's the Map.  
**ESP** - Hopefully you won't think this one's too short. *Grins*  
**Everybody Smile** - They're not all supposed to be hard to figure out - for instance, where Neville was I thought was blaringly obvious, but I dunno, no one really seemed to comment on it. Hermione made herself stand out by acting too much like the person who's body she's in.... ;)  
**Jaded Angel8** - Thanks!  
**Fuzzy-Bumpkins** - Well, it's not actually in the newspaper--you know when you read magazines in clas and in order to not get caught, you stick it in the textbook? (Well, maybe you personally wouldn't know, I've never done that either... lol.) Same idea there.  
**Saavik13**  
**penny** - If you don't already know, you'll find out in this chapter. :)  
**ataraxis** - She freaked me out too. I think she's obsessed with splitting up the HPSS romance since she knows who they are--being a Ravenclaw she truly does think it's for their own good.  
**Doneril** - Hehe, yes, the BZDM is rather creepy. (But HEY! Isn't that an original pairing? Heh heh....)

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

.~*~.

Chapter **E**_l_ev**e**_n_

Harry and Pansy avoided each other for the next few days, neither ready to talk to one another when they didn't have to. Their classes together were the hardest to bear, since their names right next to one another alphabetically in 6th year Slytherin.  
So, when Friday came along, it was a relief that Transfiguration was a class not arranged in order.  
"If you don't recall, animagus transformations were briefly covered in your third year." McGonagall was returning graded essays as she spoke. "Today we are going to begin the human transformations unit."  
Harry saw, out of the corner of his eye, Milicent's perfect score. He frowned at his own, much lower score, giving McGonagall's back an annoyed look.

"We will be beginning this unit with a few classes on vocabulary, different concepts, and the regulations that someone must follow to register their animal form with the ministry. You will also be taking a personality and character quiz to see which animal would suit you best if you were to become an animagi. I found a test which works fairly accurately for this. You should all know already that the animal form chooses you, just as the wand chooses the wizard, and also that some of you naturally just can't become animagi. I would hope that your results inspire you to learn to be an animagi after you complete your schooling here."  
McGonagall caught a student's yawn from the other side of the room. "I assure you that you will find this unit interesting, Miss Parkinson."  
Harry glanced over at Pansy. She was already looking at him, daring him to comment. He looked toward the front of the room again.

"At the moment there are only seven Ministry-registered animagi. Not that many attempt to learn how to transform. It is a very rigorous process that branches off into the even more complex field of wandless magic. I assume that Professor Flitwick has started instruction in that area?"  
The class was silent, although some students were giving her an "are you kidding?" look.  
"Well, I will be touching upon that topic anyway," she sighed.  
McGonagall then instructed them to read a handout she'd given them earlier while she did more grading. Harry, who had finished while she'd been talking, watched her up at her desk, marking papers. As she read, she chewed her marking quill. Stacked around her were various books in tall piles, in all different subjects. It reminded him of....  
His eyes widened. McGonagall was Hermione!

The class went on tantalizingly slowly, Harry squirming on his bench, turning every so often to read the clock. He found it extremely hard to concentrate on the lesson he was supposed to be taking notes for.  
Finally, the bell rang. He didn't mind being late for Divination, it was practically a free period anyway.  
He walked up to the desk, and waited for the last of the Slytherins to leave, Crabbe being considerate enough to close the door for him.  
McGonagall looked up at him wearily.  
"Hermione?"

Pansy trudged along corridors, following her house to Divination silently.  
_How did Patil know my identity?_  
She frowned. There was no reason that Crabbe should have any idea who she was. She winced, wondering if he'd told Blaise yet. It was only a matter of time until he did if he already hadn't, and then she'd be left where she'd been since graduating Hogwarts. Alone.  
_Why am I taking this so damn seriously? She wondered. It's been practically two weeks, and I'm falling for a student! Damn these female hormones!_  
She turned a corner, several paces behind the others. _In a way, my being alone is because I became a Death Eater,_ she sighed. _The Dark Lord preaches to his blind followers that love is a weakness, love is a trap. For a while, maybe I believed him._  
Climbing into the North Tower, she forced herself to stop thinking about it.

"Who are you?" McGonagall asked, in a quiet voice. She looked scared, having backed her chair away from the desk with a horrible scraping noise.  
"Harry."  
She laughed, breath slightly hitched. "Sure you are."  
Harry shrugged. "Never mind." He started out.  
"Wait," the professor said, standing. "How does your foster family treat you? What is your owl's name? What's Remus' nickname?" She stayed by her desk. "Are you really Harry?"  
"Badly, Hedwig, and Moony." Harry grinned. "You look like you've seen a lethifold, Hermione! It's just me!"

McGonagall grinned, and ran up to him to give him a hug. "I missed you!"  
"Ron and I missed you too! I should've realized sooner that you'd be playing your new part flawlessly."  
She frowned at him. "You know you're not supposed to be letting others know who you are...."  
"Of course. I've been careful. He's Padma, if you're wondering."  
She rolled her eyes. "I should've figured that was him. He's the most immature new Ravenclaw of the bunch...."  
They both shared another grin.

Harry spent most of lunch catching up with Hermione. With five minutes left, Harry went to the Great Hall to grab something for on the way to Potions and glanced at the Gryffindor table on his way to Slytherin's table.  
He stopped. Looked back.  
His body was sporting newly-bleached hair. He blinked. Made his way to the edge of the table, where his body and Ron's were talking.  
"Hey, Potter!" he said, grimacing. "What's up with your hair?"  
"Don't you like it?" Draco asked, sweetly. Dean and Seamus looked up.  
He didn't reply, glaring at the Gryffindor.  
"I think it's cool, mate," Ron said, subtly mocking Ron's speech. Harry just shook his head and continued to his table.  
Again, the only available seat was between Pansy and Crabbe. He was cursing his luck today. At least he'd found Hermione.  
"Hey, Crabbe," he said, blatantly ignoring Pansy.  
"'Ello Blaise." Crabbe sipped his orange juice. "How're you?"  
"Alright. Found a friend. Did you see Potter's hair?"  
Crabbe innocently made an exaggerated glance at the Gryffindor table. "Crazy, but why's it bothering _you_?"  
"Uh... no reason."  
"Mmhmm."  
Pansy raised an eyebrow. _What the hell does she think she's doing?_  
"Hey, is the pasta any good?"

"It's alright," Crabbe said mildly. The bell rang. They both got up. Glancing at Pansy, Crabbe caught Harry's arm. "Oh, Blaise, I wanted to tell you–"  
"Don't you dare," Pansy mouthed from behind Harry, making him jump.  
"What is it?"  
"Well, I found out that Pansy is _actually_–"  
"I'm warning you, Patil," Pansy mouthed again.  
"Hey, stop, not cool. I want to find out who she is by myself."  
Both Pansy's and Crabbe's eyebrows raised. _He thinks I walked away?_  
"But–"  
Harry turned away, finding himself in front of said student. "Erm. Hi."  
He found it a bit funny in a twisted way, the way Pansy's right eyebrow slowly sunk, leaving the left one up.  
"Like a game for you, Zabini?"

"Well, I guess one could think of it that way," he said. Her other eyebrow sunk. It was amazing how much control she had over them.  
"Uh huh."  
"Er," he started, "but if you prefer not to think of it that way–"  
She was already walking away.  
"Amazing how you repel girls with a single sentence."  
He turned to glare at Crabbe. "Gee, thanks."

Saturday the 19th was another rainy day. It was getting too cold to be out on the grounds without a cloak anyway.  
Harry had finally decided to list all the Slytherins he knew of, the Map nearby and Crabbe watching with amusement, both taunting him. He held his quill still, rereading his list.  
"Milicent Bulstrode?"  
"No."  
"Marcus Flint?"  
"He graduated already. And no."  
"Cut it out!" he said indignantly, frowning at Crabbe, but still crossing them off of his list. He tapped the quill against the parchment absently. "How would you know anyway?"

"Your map thing," he said gleefully.  
He stopped tapping. "What?"  
"Your map."  
"How did you figure out how to use it?!" Harry demanded, gaping.  
"I overheard you activate it once," she said. "Besides, I'm not completely stupid."  
"Then stop telling me! I want to figure it out on my own!"  
Crabbe was grinning. "You know, I wouldn't tell anyone if you wanted me to tell you...." He seemed to be having the time of his life, taunting him like this.  
"Padma, cut it out!" Harry turned back to his list. He still had about twenty more Slytherins he knew he was missing, before he remembered that they wouldn't matter anyway, if Pansy was past seventh year. He was beginning to get extremely vexed.

Crabbe was pouting. "Fine. I still find it extremely funny who he happens to be, especially you being who you are–"  
Harry turned to stare at her so quickly that his neck cricked and he winced. "Pansy's a he?"  
"Oops," Crabbe said, not sounding very concerned.  
Harry stood up from the place he'd been lying on the bed that Crabbe almost lost his balance and he himself was lightheaded for a few seconds.  
"I'm going to take a walk," he muttered, only pausing to stick his Map and list into Zabini's cabinet before leaving the room.

Hogwarts was so big that Harry figured that without the aid of the Marauder's Map, you could walk around for years and never find half of the hidden passageways. It still amazed him how his father and his friends had found so many, although he was sure that there were others out there. There were some blank spots on the Map that he figured might be more secret rooms, but he'd not bothered to look so far. He did want to try and find them before he left Hogwarts next year though.  
He ended up high in the castle, near the South Tower, and eventually found his way to an empty tower that he could sit in and not be disturbed.

_So._ He stared out over the railing, then drew back to avoid getting wet from the downpour. It was loud; the roof sounded like a herd of something with huge feet. _Pansy's not a girl. That was unexpected._ He frowned. _No, ironically, it was a fifty-fifty chance and ended up the way I didn't consider._ Brushing his hair away from his face and frowning when it bounced back into place, he took a seat on the stone bench connected to the wall.  
_I guess I don't really mind, she... he? I never really considered gender important, really, at least after Cho. I had plenty of time to think about that last summer. Girls can really be confusing._ Here his frown deepened. _Pansy's confusing too though. Maybe anyone you're interested in is confusing._

Next he sunk a bit. _There's an age difference though. Not in seventh year... so she... he's at least eighteen. Probably more?_ Shrug. _I guess that's not really a pivotal thing in what attracted me to Pansy anyway either though...._  
His stomach felt odd. A sort of 'squick' feeling. He figured it might just be from the unexpected news.  
Nonetheless, he sat up straighter. _I don't care who he is. After all, a name's just a name. He really can't be all that bad, can he?_

_He thinks love is a game._  
Pansy sat in the middle of her four poster. She was continuing her research for Dumbledore, but like so many times before, was finding it difficult.  
"Damnit!" She slammed the book shut. Milicent looked over at her with concern. "Damn hormones. Damnit." Refusing to curl up into a ball, she drew her legs to her chest and rested her head on her hand.  
Milicent came to the edge of the bed and leaned against a post. "Boy problems?"  
She looked up, fighting back an over-Snapish comment, although not exactly sure why. "Yeah. So?" At least her teenage vocabulary was up to par.

"I can try and help you."  
"Hufflepuff?"  
"Yeah. So?" Milicent said, breaking into a grin. Pansy awkwardly turned the corners of her mouth up, unsure of what else she was supposed to do. "What's up?"  
"Eh. I'm falling for a Gryffindor in a Slytherin body. He is much younger than me. I don't like it."  
Milicent blinked. "...Ah." She shrugged. "They like you?"  
Pansy tilted her head, thinking over the answer. "I suppose so."  
Milicent grinned again and started to leave. "Then what's the problem?" And she was out the door with a wink.  
Pansy sighed. _My own damn conscience._

The rain began to be blown into the tower from the rain, and as Harry wasn't particularly in the mood to be soaked, he climbed back down into the corridor and leaned against the wall.  
"I'm so stupid," he concluded, shaking his head. _If I was smarter, I would not only be saying the right things, but I would be able to figure out who he is._ He slid down the wall, preparing to sit there for a while, edging away from a puddle of water from the tower. _Older than eighteen... so he'd be a teacher?_ A frown. _A Slytherin teacher...._  
_...Oh._

"Hey mate! What're you doing here?"  
He looked up, eyes still wide from his realization. His palms were starting to feel like they were going to drip into their own puddles. The 'squick' had vastly intensified.  
"Hey Ron... er... what're you doing here?"  
She shrugged. "Ravenclaw tower. Uh, what's wrong?"  
Harry shook his head, making time for himself. Would Ron think he was sick if he told him who Pansy must be?

"No, mate, something's wrong. You're shaking like mad." Padma knelt down next to him, looking concerned, a face which Padma's thin face actually seemed to accomplish quite effectively.  
"I know... who Pansy is...."  
"Who's the lucky girl?"  
Harry looked up at his friend and then away, in shame. "She's not a girl."  
There was silence, then....  
"Oh."

They sat side by side, neither wanting to be the first to ask or answer. The hall faintly lit up before a boom of thunder was heard.  
"If you're wondering, I'm still fine with that, if you are," Padma said, looking down the hall on her side.  
"I don't... know." Harry looked down the hall on his own side, face reddening. "It took me so long to figure out who she was, but... he's not the first person I would expect to be so attractive, you know?"  
"Who?"  
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, preparing himself for the worst.  
"Snape."

"Shit!"  
Crabbe's homework fell to the floor as he grabbed his left arm, gritting his teeth.  
"What?" Pansy was next to him almost immediately, despite previous occurrences. She cursed in what sounded to Crabbe like Latin. "Pull up your sleeve." The rest of the common room was empty, which wasn't necessarily a good thing.  
The Dark Mark, on the inner forearm, glowed a dark red. For a second, Pansy gave a sigh of relief.  
"Good, he's not calling an assembly." She closed her eyes and sighed. "But he probably will soon. This is just a reminder of ou–_the Death Eater's_ loyalty to the Dark Lord."  
Crabbe looked near to tears at this news, and seemed to be hyperventilating.

"Calm down, it was inevitable. You are intelligent enough that should the Dark Lord call a meeting, you will keep your head enough to survive. Now, that imbecile in m–Professor Snape's body...."  
"–Longbottom–"  
"Yes, Lon–what? Shit." Pansy wrung her hands. "Longbottom is going to be the one to botch this up."  
They were silent, for once teamed instead of pitted against one another.  
"I need to speak to Longbottom and Albus, I'll be back."

There was another, longer, ringing silence. Padma slid away, right into the puddle, but didn't seem to notice. "S–Snape?"  
Harry's eyes were still shut as tightly as they could be. "Yeah."  
"Oh boy," Padma said, with something of an extremely nervous laugh. "Yeah, you've got it bad, alright. And you still like...?"  
The pair of eyes opened, but shifted away as he nodded once, extremely subtly.  
"Well."

More silence.  
"You don't think I've gone mad, do you?"  
The question Harry posed was entirely serious.  
"That's a good question."  
"Ron...."  
"Not really," Ron said, shrugging. "I mean, who am I to be offended if that goes anywhere? It's up to you, mate. I'm with you all the way, whatever you decide to do."  
"Thanks." They finally met eyes again, the first time in quite a while. Harry's mind was racing. _If it goes anywhere... it couldn't possibly go anywhere once he finds out I'm his least favorite student...._  
"So, what're you going to do?" Ron asked, giving a grin. "No details, please."  
Harry's mouth split into a grin too. "Well, I thought I'd just go right up to him and confess my love on the spot, and we'd have satisfying–"  
"Whoa! Stop! Forget I mentioned it!"  
They both collapsed in their own fits of giggles.

_First stop, Longbottom._ Pansy sighed, growling.  
She stopped and straightened her robes before pulling on the handle of chaos.  
The door to her prior quarters swung open to reveal a mess of broken bottles and teaching plan papers, still floating to the ground. In the middle of it, her prior body was curled into a ball, rocking back and forth.  
_Pitiful_.  
"Longbottom."  
The huddled Snape's head snapped up.  
"P–Parkinson?"  
Pansy brushed the name aside. "Sure. Your Dark Mark is red, correct?"  
Snape pulled up his robe sleeve to reveal the magic tattoo.  
"What the hell?" Pansy drew closer, stepping over a Potions essay and examining the Mark.  
It was bleeding.

"Okay."  
She inhaled. "I assume your puny mind can figure enough to tell who I am, correct?"  
"P–Professor Snape?"  
"Correct, for once. Quit your damn stuttering. Do you know what it means when the Dark Mark bleeds?"  
"No, sir."  
"You should, it should have been taught in your fourth year. It means that a Death Eater has been rejected. Discovered to be a traitor."  
Snape's eyes were avoiding Pansy's, looking at the floor. He was shaking.  
"Look at me!" His eyes slowly rose up to meet his. "Why are you so damn afraid of me?"  
"You're scary, sir."

"Albus," Neville Longbottom called, entering the office in a rush. Portraits gazed down at him. "Albus, the Death Eaters have been sent to."  
"Called?"  
"Thank Merlin, no. They were sent a reminder."  
Goyle, seated in the headmaster's chair, rose, no sparkle in his eyes. "We'll need to gather all of the Slytherins who are concerned, then. I believe–we may need to have Pansy Parkinson present to aid in instruction."  
Neville looked curious. "Severus?"  
Goyle nodded. "Minerva, we need to get everyone back into their houses. From there you'll be able to gather them."  
Neville nodded and exited quickly.

Both Pansy and Snape were silent, watching one another.  
"You'll need to swallow your fear then, Longbottom. You will need to cooperate and realize that your calmness and intelligence are required. I know that you at least can be competent, seeing how gifted you are in Herbology. I hope mentioning that both of our lives depend on you not screwing up doesn't put too much pressure on you," he sneered.  
"What do I do?"  
"Anything I instruct you to. You will listen to me, and you will listen to the headmaster, in Goyle's body. Only us. Do not take orders from anyone else. Do not go to Death Eater meetings, or you will be killed. Start acting more like me, if you even know how."

Snape's features grew cold. "Why are you always so hard on me?"  
"Because you never _listen_. Otherwise you wouldn't be blowing up cauldrons and making perfume instead of potions in my classes."  
He crossed his arms and didn't reply. He would've been cut off by his previous voice anyway.  
"ALL STUDENTS MUST REPORT TO THEIR HOUSE COMMONS. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MAY THEY LEAVE. HOUSE HEADS, PLEASE TAKE ROLL OF YOUR STUDENTS. ANY STUDENTS WHO ARE LATE OR WHO DO NOT SHOW MAY BE EXPELLED."  
"You need to report to Slytherin and take roll," Pansy said, walking to a cabinet and pulling from under a potions book a list of Slytherin students. "Here. Go."

The Slytherin Commons were a mess. Students anxiously moved about, talking to one another, without any order.  
"Please–your attention–"  
Snape couldn't get the Slytherins to quiet, and looked back at Pansy helplessly.  
"Imbeciles, pay attention!"  
The noise died down almost immediately. Pansy returned to the background while Snape called out names.  
Everyone was present.  
Neville entered, looking sharply at the house's members, any chatter that had begun since Pansy's intervention ending. Under normal circumstances, people would have laughed if Neville attempted to look sharp. Now, no one made a sound.

"As many of you sporting the Dark Lord's Mark are aware, he has sent you a reminder of your service to him this afternoon. Pansy Parkinson will explain to you what you are to do."  
Having the spotlight suddenly placed on her, Pansy hadn't been prepared to talk just yet, but cleared her throat anyway.  
"Slytherins," she started, glaring at a pair who were still whispering. "I want each and every one of you to pull your left sleeve up completely. Longbottom and I will tell the ones who don't have Marks to return to their dorms."

When Snape made to move, Pansy shooed him back, pointing Neville's body to one end of the students and she herself starting in the front.  
Once all the students who did not have marks were removed, a thankfully large number of the house, the ten or so Slytherins who did sport the Dark Lord's symbol gloomily sat on the poufs and tables in the front of the commons. Neville left, leaving Snape and Pansy in front. Snape practiced making glares at random individuals while Pansy spoke.

"You will all need to keep your heads about you while you are in the bodies you are in now," she began. "I'm sure you haven't enjoyed your taste of being a Slytherin, but since you have been placed in this position, for the time being, this is something you will have to overcome.  
"I will give you no lies. The Dark Lord is a very cruel and unforgiving man. If anything is said of you that makes you suspicious, you will be investigated and possibly removed. If you are removed for being a traitor, the other Death Eaters will consider you just as big of targets as important people on the light side.

"You will inevitably be called to a meeting while still in the body you inhabit. You must all learn to apparate, most importantly. You must keep your wits about you. You must speak only when spoken to. You must do as the Dark Lord says. And most importantly, you mustn't make yourself a target. It is your duty. The light side is fighting to conquer the dark, but you mustn't rebel. You would be putting too many people at risk. If you are tortured, you must've give any information away that you may know of."  
Before her, the glum faces of Crabbe, Milicent, and Malfoy were in front of the others. Then there were seventh years.

"Dumbledore will be there with you, but you must not watch him. You must not betray him. If you say _anything_ about Dumbledore while at a meeting, either you or him will be killed in an instant. If you betray Dumbledore, you will be setting yourself up to perish at my hands."  
Some of them watched with no expression. A few were shaking. One of the seventh years was crying.  
"Go. Eat meals and rest, and be alert at all times for callings. I will meet with you again at some point to explain more." She waved them off.  
By the end of the day, the gloom had spread to the entire castle.


	12. Chapter 12: Fight

Bonjour!

Another fast update... dang... this 'un's six pages. I'm not all that happy with it, I dunno.

Some notes about this chapter:  
-Lol, not many of you were surprised at Hermione and Neville's characters, so I guess I played them out well, keeping them in-character.  
-This story now has over two-hundred reviews! ("They like me! They really like me! *Falls off podium*") Thanks so much, guys. **Winnie2** was reviewer 200! *Gives cookies*  
-I tried not to be stereotypical with Harry and Sevvie's fight... whoo fight... but I think I failed.

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Grace James** - Yes, but you must remember that Draco's _in_ Harry's body... you think he would last long enough to get two words out if he apparated? O.o Moldieshorts would shoot him down....  
**Elmindrea-al'Thor** - Yes, Padma-in-Crabbe has used the map more than once, it takes a few tries to know that you're looking at the right people and all. Thanks for the review, I'm really glad that you think that Switched is getting good. :)  
**Cliffe** - I dunno, I think that they're false alarms for now, I seem to be churning out chapters faster than I ever believed possible. *Makes face* It might not be the best thing too, makes some stories seem "mass produced" and written for the audience, not for the author. I'm writing this to see where it goes, although the reviews are a nice plus. ;) Thanks for your compliments. :D   
**Devona Wolfe** - Wheeee, a Severus for my birthday would be quite lovely indeed. I do bring up Harry's new bleached hair again here... I was going to have Draco give him a mohawk, but decided blonde hair seemed more Dracoish. If you have any ideas for any evil pranks Draco could be doing, that would be lovely... I'm coming up with them slowly, but they really can add to the humour in the story if they're around once in a while... though they will probably disappear when things get tougher for Harry.  
**Kaaera** - :D Thanks for the review!  
**LeeLeePotter** - Thanks. :) Yes, some people (*coughMinervacough*) think that it is cruel to send the children to Death Eater meetings... but wouldn't it be even worse if that's the reason that Voldemort finds out about their current condition? :S  
**penny** - Pansy doesn't know who Blaise is... yet. She will find out soon, I won't be making her as stupid as Harry. (Honestly, I can see Harry being as thick as he has been... remember book four and the tasks? Heh.)  
**Ronda-Silverpaw** - Thanks! :)  
**theox** - I've been thinking about your review for a day or so, since whenever I saw it in my e-mail. You said that the characters are too 'American', but how would you really expect me to write truly 'Britishly' (heh heh... make words up as you need 'em...) unless I lived there? So far, I've gone as far as to make the measurements in centimeters, which is a lot more than you can say for most fan fictions. I would spell more things the 'British way', because I already do in normal internet speech, but my spell-checker is set to American English because American teachers will not accept [British] English. *Smiles* If you have specific points I can improve (since saying my writing is 'too American' is pretty vague, you realize), then I certainly would appreciate the constructive crisitism more than a generalization.  
**risi** - Thanks for the review. :D  
**aquarium-glass** - Aww, thanks. ^^  
**ESP** - Lol HPSS slash is good slash! It is really neat that even though you don't like this particular ship that you can still read it because it doesn't play too big a role... neat, whee. Oh, and hmm... I suppose that is true. I'll have to watch out for that in future chapters and cover up that mistake. ^^"  
**Winnie2** - Yesss Ron is. I think I probably should've made him act up more, though. (Thanks for being reviewer 200 :) )  
**Necromant** - Well, I'll have to stop when it ends, sadly, lol. I have a neat idea for another slash fan fiction that I refuse to begin until this one is done (all I'll say now is that it's RWSS... yes, I'd like to try an 'odd' pairing for once), so maybe these chapters are getting out fast because I actually want to start it... hmm... *ponders*  
**Doneril** - I can't tell you if [s]he'll be ready once [s]he finds out about Harry... dang pronouns, gah... that will be brought out in the chapter that I wrote this story for... lol I'm pathetic....  
**c[R]ud[E]dly** - *Nods* I honestly did that because I can't write Snape as a spy. It just doesn't seem plausible to me. That's how my other HPSS story ended up too, only I had complete writers' block from then on. (I should delete it at some point, heh.) The reason? I feel that Snape can't possibly be a spy still if he was revealed, by Dumbledore, to be a spy for the Order. *Shrugs* Just a point that most Snapefics don't consider.  
**Ruth01** - Thanks for the review. :D  
**Aria-fic** - Whoops, thanks, I'll remember that point. Thansk for reviewing. :)  
**n snape** - Thanks ^^  
**ataraxis** - Glad you like it. :)

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

.~*~.

Chapter **T**w_**e**_l_v_e

Alone in his dorm, Harry was left to do nothing but think.  
_This is happening way too much lately,_ he mused, looking out the window at the sunset. He imagined that the house elves would be bringing dinner to them today. It wouldn't do to have the still-loyal Death Eaters find out about the meeting. It was probably too late anyway.  
_How can anyone stay loyal to Voldemort when he attempts to blow everyone up regardless?_ Here he frowned. _And Malfoy... but if he shows up at a meeting, Voldemort will kill him. I guess that's good then. Unless he's stupid enough to try it. Maybe Zabini can keep him out of trouble._  
Zabini. He frowned, looking around at the dorm. Four beds. Three of the four students who normally occupied those beds wore the Dark Mark. It was a terrible thought to bear, how Voldemort could accept teenagers into his circle. He sighed. Their lives were probably easier to throw away.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he bounced up and down, hearing the mattress squeak.  
_So I went and fell for Snape when his identity was secret. Ironic._  
How would he be able to approach him... her... him?... the next time they came to face? Harry fidgeted on the bed. _This is Snape, though. He's so... evil._ He frowned. The door opened, and Crabbe and Malfoy entered, the latter heading straight to the bathroom. Crabbe gave Harry a weak smile.  
"I figured out who she is," Harry muttered.  
"Took you long enough," he replied, falling backwards onto his bed. The whole thing shook. "You are so lucky, being the one 6th year without the Mark." He must've been too tired to meditate, but he did talk to Harry more. "It's nice having distractions." He was almost humming, giving himself a face of false happiness. Harry felt awkward and even a little worried for him, even in his current state. He seemed to be in a twisted sort of denial. Like everything was a bad dream.

He almost wished it was. _No_, he thought, turning to peer out the window. _If it were all a dream, things wouldn't be so screwed._  
"You still going to go after Pansy now that you know she's Snape?" Crabbe turned to watch Harry's response, twitching ever so slightly. He wanted him to say no.  
Harry kept staring out the window.

"Albus, how can you even consider sending them out to meetings?" Neville looked mystified.  
"If Voldemort finds out what's going on, Minerva, we're all doomed. We certainly can't put up as much of a fight in these bodies. We're sitting ducks."  
She winced at the name, then frowned. "Sitting ducks?"  
"Muggle expression." Goyle frowned and straightened his paper. "News is pretty bleak this evening. Cannons were beat again... ah, our young Wood has gone and is second-in-command of the Puddlemore United team. Nothing else is worth mentioning."

"But how can those children be prepared to–"  
"I have my complete faith in Severus' ability to train them and train them well."  
There was a knock and Pansy entered. "I sent them off to bed. They need early apparation classes. I will need to teach them a lot in a short amount of time."  
"I was just telling Minerva that you have all my faith that you'll do an acceptable job training them, Severus."

"Well?"  
Harry looked over at Crabbe, and shrugged. "I know what you're trying to do. I haven't decided yet. I seriously doubt Snape would be interested in me once he finds out who _I_ am...."  
"Don't you think it disgusting that you were attracted to someone who's forty?"  
"Pansy's not forty, is she though?" Harry cocked an eyebrow at his housemate. "I'll decide what I want to do when the time comes along, Padma. After all, he knows that he was feeling attracted to a teenager...."  
"Attracted?" Crabbe smirked, sitting up. "When did he ever say he was _attracted_ to you?"  
"What're you trying to do, Padma? I like Snape, okay? I can live with that...."  
"There, you said it." He stretched. "Ugh."  
Harry shrugged. "It doesn't bother you if we're together though, does it?"  
"I guess not. I just thought you'd be embarrassed if you found out who she was."  
"Well, next time, don't make decisions for me." Harry said, leaving Crabbe to meditate shortly after.

Pansy was in the common room. Harry hesitated on the steps, then continued downwards, arguing in his head whether to sneak to the kitchen or to talk to her.  
She made that decision for him.  
"I suppose Padma's told you who I am then? To get back at me for the Dark Marks?"  
"She didn't, but I figured out on my own."  
There was silence for a moment. "And you aren't affected? I think you guessed wrong then...."

"No." Harry sat and faced her on the sofa. "I know. And... I think... yes. I'm fine with it."  
"No," she was shaking her head, starting to tilt away as Harry had seated himself pretty close. "No... how can you be fine with it?"  
Harry was quiet.  
"I'm more than twenty years older than you!"  
"So?"  
"_So_? I'm mole–"  
"Then you have my consent."  
Pansy frowned. "To do what?"  
"I don't know. Whatever." He cast his eyes over the back of the sofa. He was avoiding her eyes again.

"Who _are_ you?"  
"I'm–er."  
The common room's wall opened up a bit to allow Neville passage, but he stopped, ears turning pink. "S–Pansy, I'm not disturbing anything, am I?"  
"No, what does Albus want?"  
"Mmm. He wants to know if you'll need extra space to train–them."  
"I think that a free dungeon will be fine, Minerva."  
Neville's eyes flickered to Harry a few times. Gears spun in her head.  
"Alright then, I guess that is all."

And she left. Harry swallowed some butterflies, and put an arm around Pansy. Who knew that one day he'd be leaning close to Snape?  
"I don't understand how you could possibly–"  
"I accept the fact that you're–can I call you Severus?–I don't mind. I told you, I don't care who you are. I mean, I know who you are, don't I? Your name doesn't make you who you are."  
"Who are you?" she asked again, quieter this time, leaning back, into Harry, just a tiny bit.  
"I'll tell you soon," Harry said, closing his eyes. There would certainly be a bit of trouble when Snape found out. The tables had turned, hadn't they?  
"Why not now?"  
He smirked. "You remember when you said that I'd care when I found out who you are? That applies, backwards."  
She furrowed her eyebrows but didn't say any more.

"Imbeciles! Quit talking and pay attention!"  
The twelve Slytherins with Dark Marks looked up sheepishly from a conversation. Pansy stood at the front of the room, while the Slytherins collectively sat in the very back.  
"Move up to the front seats," she told them, crossing her arms and glaring. They grumbled and moved up a few rows. "Starting today, you will be taking a crash course in being a Death Eater. You will learn apparation, several curses and countercurses, and how to control your body and facial expressions, as well as how to act in front of the Dark Lord. These skills will inevitably be very valuable when you go back to your former body and fight for the side of good. When you see how horrible he really is, you will certainly feel very strongly against him.

"Starting today, every single day you will be meeting me here at seven to learn these things. This will continue until further notice."  
Someone groaned.  
"And rest assured, if you do skip, when you are called to a meeting, you will very much regret it," she ended, with an icy tone in her voice, looking each Death Eater in the eyes. "First, I will be teaching you to apparate, and some very simple Occlumency. Does anyone know what that is?"  
No one moved.  
"It is a skill involving the complete control of your own mind, possibly reaching out to the control of others' minds. You will learn to use it to block your own thoughts from the Dark Lord. I will not be teaching you to control others' minds because that particular skill corrupts people."

"You've got it bad, mate," Padma said, chewing on her chicken. "You've got it bad."  
"Stop it, you're making me feel stupider."  
"Is that even a word?"  
Birds flew overheard, as the two friends were seated outside, against the castle, waiting for McGonagall.  
"Are you going to tell Hermione?"  
"Er. Should I?"  
He shrugged. "You never know what Hermione'll freak about and what she'll be fine with."  
"What do you mean?"

McGonagall sat down next to them, with a napkin full of toast. Harry gave her a nervous grin. "Hey Hermione."  
"What were you talking about?" Harry detected suspicion.  
"Harry here has a crush on Snape."  
"Ron!"  
"_Really_?"  
Harry put his head in his hands, groaning.

"Merlin, Harry, how desperate are you?"  
"I'm _not_ desperate. And he's... er... well, I liked him before I knew he was Snape, so why shouldn't I now?"  
Ron whistled. "Who would've ever guessed that Harry Potter would turn out gay?"  
"Potter's turned gay?" Harry glared at his own body, sporting blonde hair.  
"Who invited you, Malfoy?"  
"I invited myself, Potter, I always do." He sat in the circle as Harry wondered just how many visitors they'd be getting. "Now, who is he?"

"Gods, Malfoy, you're acting like we're best friends gossiping or something...."  
He feigned a hurt look. "And we aren't?" He took one of McGonagall's pieces of toast without even sparing her a glance and helped himself. "You realize I'll never stop bugging you until you tell me?"  
"Yeah, I know."  
McGonagall and Padma had been watching this exchange with a deal of amusement.  
"Yeah," Ron cut in. "Sod off."

"It's Snape, alright? I fancy Snape. Now let me have lunch in peace."  
Draco laughed. "No, come on Potter, seriously, who?"  
"I just told you, Malfoy."  
His eyes almost popped. "I thought he hated you."  
"He _does_. He doesn't know who I am yet."  
"Well, how're you going to tell him?"  
"I'm going to avoid it as long as possible."  
"You realize, Potter, that once he finds out, you're going to have scarred him for life?"

"No, working like that you'll splinch yourselves in two minutes."  
The students looked up at Pansy.  
"Jones, put your wand away, you don't need it for apparation. Crabbe, don't close your eyes, you'll land in the wrong place when you actually apparate."  
For the next hour, they practiced the technique, and by the end of their small Sunday meeting, some of them had even apparated into the hallway.  
Still, walking back to Slytherin with them, Pansy felt uneasy. They had to be learning this quicker. She would still need to teach control, blocking, and cursing, and at this rate, a Death Eater meeting even three weeks ahead would completely ruin any hope they had.

She settled on her normal sofa, flipping a page before she felt arms around her.  
"Don't you ever sleep, Severus?"  
"Zabini...."  
Harry leaned his head on Pansy's shoulder from behind the sofa, looking at the book. "Researching wards for Dumbledore, hmm?"  
"Professor Dumbledore. I never said you could call me Severus."  
"You never said I couldn't, either."

"Well then–"  
"Would you prefer Snape then?"  
Silence.  
"I didn't think so."  
"I'm your professor...."  
"Are you really? I never knew that _Pansy Parkinson_ taught...."  
"Who are you?" Pansy looked up at him, and Harry gulped unnoticeably.  
"That can wait."

"No, Zabini." She turned in the couch, sitting on her knees. "I want to know now."  
Harry's eyes again went away, looking at the fire past her. Inside his head, Draco's words echoed, over and over again. _...You're going to have scarred him for life._  
"Look at me."  
Harry's eyes went back to hers.  
"Tell me who you are."  
He felt prying at the edge of his head. He backed up stiffly. "You're so desperate to know that you're going to use Occlumency to find out?"  
"Well, if you're not going to tell me–"  
"A relationship is based on trust, Severus."

"What relationship?" she snarled. "When I last checked, I didn't want anything to do with you."  
Harry's gaze hardened. "You just love pushing people away, don't you? Do you really want to be lonely, especially when you have the chance to try not to be?"  
"Who are you to judge my love life, Zabini?"  
"What love life?" he snarled back. "Last I checked, you felt that this was nothing. So you are left with what?"  
She was silent, trying to stare him down.

"Stop the self-pity. Does it even make any difference to you that I still fell into love with you, even after I found out you were Snape?" The minute the sentence was out of his mouth, his hands clapped over it, eyes wide. "I... said that out loud, didn't I?"  
Pansy was unchanged. "Teenagers don't understand love for what it is."  
Harry's butterflies had returned. _You said that you loved Snape. You said that you loved Snape to Snape._  
"What, have you ever been in love?"  
Pansy was motionless for a bit. "I thought I was." _With Lily Evans,_ he sighed. _Before Potter got in the way._  
"With who?"  
"Nosy, aren't you?"  
Harry shrugged. "Curious."  
"You wouldn't know her."  
"Oh." The word 'her' rung in Harry's mind. Snape still didn't know that he was a male. That would probably bother him. _You realize that, once he finds out, you'll have scarred him for life?_

"I'll let you go anonymous for a while," she told him shrugging. "But then I want to know."  
"Can you be open-minded once you find out?" Harry asked. "Or will you judge me from previous prejudices?"  
"I'll try," she said impatiently. "If you're someone horrible...."  
"But you don't really know your students, do you?" Harry asked quickly, raising an eyebrow. "You don't know how they act when they're alone or when they fancy someone. You don't really know them, just how they act in class."  
"I know enough."  
"No," Harry said, feeling somewhat panicked but appearing calmer. "If you take that attitude, you would send me away anyway. Don't do that."  
"Yes, but would you really want to continue a 'relationship' with your Potions master, who is twenty years older than you?"

Harry stopped to think, keeping his eyes locked to Pansy. "I could."  
"What do you mean, you could? Teenagers are run on hormones, Zabini. As soon as you saw someone younger and fresher–"  
"People don't understand me," he whispered, shaking his head. "They don't want me for me. They want me for who they idealize me as. This is the only chance I get to maybe see if I ever could be in _something_ that is driven on who I am, not who I'm supposed to be."  
Her eyes narrowed. "Is this just something? Or an experiment?"  
"If you don't cooperate, then I guess it's a little one-sided on my own side. If you did, wouldn't you realize that it means something?"

"Go away."  
"Severus–"  
"I told you to go away," she whispered dangerously, punctuation every word. "Now get out of my sight, Zabini."  
Harry felt like he should be angry, but he was just disappointed. _So Snape has more than just the 'evil' and 'snarky' downsides._ "Why do I even try with you?"  
"Because you love me," she mocked, rolling her eyes. "Go away."  
He went up to his dorm and stayed there through dinner.


	13. Chapter 13:Misfortune Through Reflection

'Ello!

This is it. Well, no, not _it, _as in the end. There's definitely more coming. But this is it as in the chapter that I wrote the story for. (Tee hee.) This was the basic idea of the fan fiction-inspired dream I had that resulted in this story. I wish I could've made this chappie better though, in the dream it was awesome... but yeah, lol. Am I the only one who has fan fiction in their dreams? 

Some notes about this chapter:  
-HOW AM I WRITING THESE SO DANG FAST? (Wish I could be doing _Trapped in My Mind_ this fast... lol.)  
-I'm in a love/hate relationship with this chapter. I love the idea of this happening (yes, I am a crazed fangirl... problem?), but I don't exactly like their 'date'. Bit hard to write.  
-This particular section is mainly plotless, and if you were to skip it (you may not like the idea of HPSS romance, for example... which would be rather baffling if you're here, but yeah) it probably wouldn't matter that much.  
-Even though the majority of you who were here while I was posting the beginning chapters felt I was being too slow with the HPSS stuff, I still feel like I'm taking this way too fast. _No, Harry's not seriously 'in love' yet - Sevvie is right, he just thinks he is._ But it still feels awful fast to me.  
-I'm still torn between a happy ending for this story or an angsty ending. I dunno, I'm not writing two versions though. Probably a happy ending though, I love happy endings, they're so... happy!  
-Wheeeeeeeeeee seven days 'til me birthday! ^^  
-I don't know yet if this story will be spanning the entire school year or not - what I have planned for Voldemort is minimal at this point, but he's so careful when planning that his actions _should_ take all year. (Even though how they line up exactly with the school year is a little suspicious on JKR's part.... ¬_¬) I don't know, I'll have to leap bigger spaces in time than three days to a week, like I have been. It's not even Halloween yet. (What do you think?)  
-Did you see **Switched: Reflection** yet? If not, I suggest you read that before this chapter. It's one of the aforementioned "mini fics". I wrote it, just click my name up there somewhere. *Points up*  
-Someone reviewed and reminded me about the fact that they can't apparate in Hogwarts... GAH I can't _believe_ I missed that... but unfortunately their review was eaten by FFN and shall never see the light of day. *Pout* Thank you, whoever that was! @_@  
-Snape has commitment problems. o.O  
-The next chapter may or may not take a while. You see - I have concerts and practices and crap galore in May. I also have a MAJOR problem at the moment with copyright theft from my interactive Hogwarts site - someone was lazy and took all my ideas, my system, my images, all the things I've kept running by hand since November of 2001 and turned it into a little pagebuilder site. I've had problems with people taking my ideas before (but I'm smart enough to know that that's because their jealous that they're not so creative... bah), as well as bandwidth, layouts, and _actual text from the actual pages_ before, but never all at once. (Gah I'm so POd, ugh.) But yes. My venting is over, lol. I've already killed this person... *thinks* ...twelve times now? Ah well. I'll just get through it by thinking very wonderful, egotistical thoughts. ;)

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Necromant** - Thanks! Yes, RWSS is a rather unusual pairing... that's why I want to try it! Oh, and you'll be seeing Sevvie's reaction this chapter... ^^   
**LeeLeePotter** - :S Sorry about that confusion. In a way, I intentionally jump around that way, though I'm not entirely sure why... just to drag some things out a bit longer sometimes, I guess. Or check if my readers are awake. XD   
**Ruth** - He'll find out this chapter. Oh, and Voldie knows that killing everyone didn't work - hence the 'reminder' - he just doesn't know to what extent it didn't work. (Dang, I seem to be explaining an awful lot in these replies. I should be putting the answers into the story. --")  
**Fuzzy-Bumpkins** - Okay. :)  
**SlytherinRomantic** - Alrighty, thanks.  
**Sky** - Thanks, even though I have absolutely no clue what makes a main plot and background plot differ... O.o Lol.  
**Lady Darkness13** - Hehe. Well, you'll see his reaction this chapter....  
**Doneril** - He never really does work up the courage, you know? Poor Harry, never getting all the time he needs for anything.  
**Katie Lupin Black** - You'll see! ^^  
**silver-sunn101** - You will!  
**Saavik13** - Yep, the hormones are wearing down on our poor professor....  
**Ronda-Silverpaw** - Okay. :)  
**ataraxis** - Whaaaat? Severus is way too prejudiced to understand *that* fast... but he might eventually, lol.  
**penny** - Thanks for the review. ^^

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

.~*~.

Chapter _T_hi**r**te_e_n

"Idiots! Stop blasting curses at random! Aim!"  
The group of Death Eaters looked up, collectively giving Pansy looks of loathing that she chose to ignore. "Your aim is important. If you fire off in any direction, you may not have time to send another one when it misses. Learn to keep your hands steady." She glanced at the clock, sighed, and told them to go. She couldn't keep them from their vastly more important social lives, after all.  
She sighed. Zabini had been avoiding her for two days in a row now... since their fight. Pansy was wondering why it was bothering her so much.  
So, he thought he loved her. Thought he _could_ love her. He would snap to his senses at some point before revealing himself, and she'd never know who had toyed with her emotions so much in the past weeks.

"What'm I going to do?" Harry paced in Padma's dorm. He was getting tired of his friend's constant teasing–as if falling for Snape and then thinking he was in love with the man was something funny.  
Hell, maybe it was. He wasn't exactly in the most jest of moods.  
"Well, I quite admire your way of going about things," she told him, snorting. "Seeking a little intimacy, hmm?"  
"Sod off. I need advice, not taunting."  
"Right." Padma peered into the mirror as she spoke, trying to untangle the comb he hadn't quite mastered using out of her thick hair. It wasn't budging. "What about taking her on a date?"  
"What?" Harry stared at Padma as though she'd gone mad. "You know as well as I do that all the Hogsmeade weekends are cancelled until further notice...."  
"You don't have to go there to have a date, mate, just pack a picnic and go for the lake. Girls love it when you set up something like that for them."  
Harry coughed.

"Well, er, at least girls who are girls do," Padma ended, on an awkward note. "Go on! Think of how romantic it would be–just you two, the moon, and the giant squid–"  
He whacked her. "Prat."  
"I'm serious though, you should ask her on a date. You might get to know each other a little better."  
"Yeah, alright. How do I go about asking her?"  
"You don't know how to ask a girl on a date?" Padma asked, incredulous. "Where've you been, the past year that Cho was chasing after you? Didn't you pick up on _anything_?"  
"Er... not really."  
"Just ask her if she'd like to have dinner with you out on the lake sometime, Harry." She shrugged. "Not that big a deal."

"So I was wondering if, er, you wanted to have dinner with me out by the lake sometime."  
Pansy blinked. Zabini had stopped her on her way to her dorm to... ask her on a date?  
"When?"  
"Er, maybe Friday? Yeah. Friday."  
"...When?"  
"Six maybe?"  
"Well... I have to teach the dunderheads at seven."

"Oh. Can you call it off? It's only one day," he said with a shrug.  
"That could be the evening before they are called to a meeting."  
"Well then." Harry nervously glanced around to give himself some time. "Maybe... you could teach them at six-thirty, and meet me at eight for dinner?"  
"I suppose that could be arranged."  
They stared at one another for a minute. "Well. Thanks, Severus."  
She nodded curtly, and continued up to her dorm in a daze.

Sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts, the last period of the day Friday, Harry was continually fidgeting in his seat. His... date... was tonight.  
_I'm dating Snape_, he noted. _I'm dating Snape and Ron and Hermione think it's all laughable and I don't like to think that I'm falling into love with him._  
_And pigs fly_, he added, for good measure. Everything else that he thought impossible was happening.  
Pansy could see Harry squirming with the corner of her eye. It made her feel that she at least still had a little control.

Her Death Eater class dragged on at a tantalizingly slow rate. The students were still learning simple curses, and were blocking an easy way, with a simple shield charm.  
Pansy had wanted them to master this charm so she could move onto more, but had never considered their reaction time. To put it kindly, they needed practice. Lots of it, too.  
One of the students' hair was standing up from the static buzz of an incorrectly-sent curse. Another was having trouble getting his wand to work, period. Yet another continually aimed six feet above her target. Out of all of them, Crabbe appeared to be the only one with half a brain for the particular stuff that was being taught; he lazily cast a shield charm, and with one flick of his wand had Millicent body-bound.

Elsewhere, students were not so handy. A desk started burning with a green flame, and the entire class paused to look at it, reducing the previous racket to silence, which then became panic.  
"Stop!"  
Pansy put out the fire and repaired the poor desk, an innocent bystander of a battle of the idiots.  
"That is all for today. Out! For tomorrow's meeting, I _expect you to know your defensive magic._"  
The class filed out in a great lump, no one wanting to be the one left with an angry Pansy. Alone in the room, she leaned back against a desk, closed her eyes, and massaged her forehead. _These dunderheads need to study more or they'll kill themselves off before Voldemort gets the chance._

Somewhere a clock chimed eight times, and she realized just how long she was drilling and teaching them each day. It was a wonder how they ever got their homework done.  
Well, no it wasn't, since three-quarters of their classes were like free periods anyway.  
Sigh.  
_Eight. Weren't you supposed to do something at eight?_  
Silence....  
_ACK!_  
She changed directions and sprinted back down the hallway, only slowing when the doors were in sight and she realized how it would look if Minerva or Albus were to see her running.  
Ha.

She raised an eyebrow when she saw Harry, who was sitting next to a rather large picnic basket, looking out at the lake. He'd spread a tablecloth that the house elves must've given him. He didn't notice her coming.  
She cleared her throat from a few meters away. He glanced over and jumped, sitting up straighter and mouth breaking into a shy grin.  
"Trying rather hard, aren't you, Zabini?"  
"Nah," he said, shrugging. "Just figured it would be nice."  
"You do realize that the outdoor curfew was half an hour ago?"

"It was?" he asked vaguely. "Oh well, no one's going to catch us out here." As he spoke, he fumbled with something that Pansy couldn't see in the darkness, and seconds later, a small candle floated above them, giving them light. "It's invisible to anyone but you and me. Learned the spell last summer while doing homework."  
"Interesting," she said mildly, not really sure what was expected of her next. It wasn't as though she'd ever been on many dates as Severus Snape.

"Er... you want to start eating then?"  
"Sure," she replied, sitting cross-legged and taking the napkin offered to her. Out of the picnic basket came salads, pork chops, and cheesecake.  
"I hope you don't mind the odd combination," he said, looking up to give her a grin. "I wasn't sure what you would like that I could bring in here," he said, poking the basket with his toe.  
Pansy shook her head, still somewhat amazed that this student, knowing who she was, had still brought her out here and wasn't just pranking her.  
Picking up their salads, they started eating in a somewhat awkward silence, until Harry was brave enough to begin a conversation.

"How's training? Are they still dunderheads?"  
She caught herself smiling and began to feel nervous; small talk never was her strong point.  
"Unfortunately, yes, they're still the idiots they were the past few days. They caught a desk on fire. Started panicking. I can't believe how small their charming skills are."  
"Well, you have to give them credit for trying, don't you? Some could be first or second years, and just after the start of school they were forced into this sticky situation."  
"True," she admitted, shrugging. "They aren't studying on their own time, though. They need to be, or they don't improve from class to class at all."

"Maybe they don't think of it as a class," Harry said, through a mouth full of salad. "Maybe that's why they don't feel they should study."  
She made a thoughtful face. "I would think that the importance of the situation would get through to them...."  
"You obviously aren't familiar with students' habits then, Severus. A little surprising."  
"Doesn't it bother you just a tiny bit that you're on a date with me?" she asked, changing the mood dramatically.  
"Dangit, you're so insecure. Yes, it's a bit of a _surprise_, but I don't really mind. I'm really not that close-minded."  
"Even for a Gryffindor?"  
He stuck his tongue out. He was almost done with his salad, and Pansy only then realized that she had stopped eating hers. She hurriedly brought a forkfull to her mouth.

By the time they finished their slices of cheesecake, they'd been discussing such light matters as the weather, particular classes that had absolutely no structure, and half-hearted bickerings of the differences of their houses. The conversation had made both a little more comfortable with one another as the night progressed.  
Harry leaned slightly against Pansy, sighing. These little things, like putting his arms around Pansy, or leaning against her–they were completely new to him, but they just seemed to come naturally. He wasn't as worried about how he appeared or sounded to Pansy. He figured that most of that was because Pansy had no idea who he was, but they were still pleasant thoughts, even if this was Snape. He was personally amazed at how easily he was taking the discovery. One would think that the idea of dating the Potions master was a crazy, even laughable thing, but here he was, leaning on the man's shoulder....

His stomach gave the now somewhat familiar 'squick'.  
Pansy seemed a little tired; she was leaning back a bit now. Harry slung an arm around her shoulder, absently matching his breathing to hers.  
She turned her head to look at him and he looked out towards the lake, only remembering her presence when she slung her arm over his own shoulder.  
Some time later, after a few minutes in a comfortable silence, they stood up together, then stared at one another for a few seconds, before Harry grinned at the sudden notion to sweep her off her feet. Holding in a laugh, he did just that, teetering for a moment where he thought he'd drop her. She laughed, stopping short when he brought her closer to the water.  
He'd had the fun idea of throwing her into the water, but froze when he saw something she hadn't yet noticed.

Pansy, helpless to Blaise picking her up, could only laugh as he stumbled. He was probably used to a body that wasn't so string-bean thin as Zabini's. Then she realized he was going to throw her into the water.  
It probably wasn't that cold, but she didn't particularly care to find out.  
And then he stopped, and she took a second to glance up at his face before looking out at the lake.  
_Oh._

In the water before them, mostly because of the moonlight and the candle behind them, was their reflection.  
Harry had never really considered that lake water could be one of the substances Dumbledore mentioned–the ones like the mirrors and the Great Hall's ceiling, both of which reflected their true selves rather than their bodies, until broken.  
But the evidence was right before them. It obviously was.

Harry saw himself, Harry, standing in Zabini's clothing, but still himself. But in his arms wasn't Pansy Parkinson's body. It was Severus Snape's, with his arms holding onto his neck, and mouth open in the rare look of astonishment that one saw on his face. Harry's 'squick' feeling intensified.  
For what seemed like a minute, but was probably only half of that, neither moved. Their expressions of shock stayed the same, and the slight breeze was lost to them, as to Harry was the dampness of the water seeping in through Zabini's boots.  
And then Pansy pulled herself from Harry's arms and started to back away, watching him with mistrust.

"I guess now you know who I am," Harry said lamely, making no attempt to move towards Pansy, who had stopped at a safe distance a meter or two beyond the picnic blanket. He sighed as he put his hands in his pockets, feeling faintly sick to his stomach. After a few moments of nothing, he spoke again, more quietly. "Please don't just walk away. We could still make this work–"  
"Make _what_ work?" she spat. "You're–you're _Potter_. There was never anything between Potter and myself and there _never will be_."

"I asked you to be accepting," he said, taking a few tripping steps forward, so he was at the other edge of the blanket. "Aren't you even going to try?"  
"I won't be–"  
"You seemed fine enough when you didn't know I was me," he said, walking forward again, stopping right in front of her. "You have to admit, you had something going. You came to this date. You put your arm around me. You laughed when I picked you up. Please, don't go back on old grudges against–"

She opened her mouth to say something else in her rage, but Harry cut her off.  
"What am I saying? No one ever tries to get to know you. Except Dumbledore. You know why you've been on your own for so long? Because you _want_ to be, that's why. And even though you know you want something with someone, you get in your own way because you expect such high standards that–"  
"You wouldn't even make low standards, Potter."  
He punched her arm, inwardly screaming at himself because he couldn't decide if it counted as hitting a girl or not, then pulled her close enough to kiss her for a brief second.  
"You see? I don't mind. Why do you?"

And with a flick of his wand that made the candle, picnic basket, and tablecloth-slash-blanket vanish, he walked off, not listening for any more words from Pansy.  
She didn't say anything anyway. She was too busy trying to sort out her very jumbled, conflicting thoughts.


	14. Chapter 14: Detention

Gahd, I've run out of different ways to say hello. Hi.

And oooomigosh I am so sorry I just let this story dangle right there, lol. I really did get writers' block that time. I'm serious, I wrote practically nothing in the month and a half or so after that last chapter - my English paper on _To Kill a Mockingbird_ (GOOD book, BAD overanalyzation, sheesh) sucked it all out of me. It was almost 40 pages long, the thing I had to write. (That's why I hate double-spacing. Makes everything huge. I prefer single spacing or at most, half-spacing.) I think I uploaded one new original fiction on fictionpress in that time (May 4th I did so), wrote two poems and a zillion stupid poem fragments, and did nothing else writing-wise (though I just now wrote a song... getting my creativity back yay!). But now school's over and I get to worry about Hogwarts, _Switched_ (wait, can I italicize it? ...It's longer than the novel I'm halfway done writing, lol...), and my job (website designer grins), which is nice. 9th grade next year! Oh, and I started karate, it's so cool, you should start karate too! :D Lol.

Some notes about this chapter:  
-Er, so much for fast.  
-It jumps around a bit, because I wrote the chapter on about six different days. (But hey, from where Harry rejoins the class to the end... I wrote that today! The 10th of June 2004! Yeah mon!)  
-There is little plot development in this chapter, but it's like a recovery sort of chapter. Bringing up things that will be brought up more importantly later.  
-I have a bit of odd angst in here. I don't like writing angst in long stories, gah, I just want to befuddle my characters but then make 'em happy. --"  
-Have you ever read SSNL? Lol, I was looking at odd pairings the other day... and there's only a small number of 'em. I might write one someday, but it won't be connected with Switched and it will probably be short and one-shot. "  
-Don't you just wonder who Trelawney is? May be a sidefic, haven't decided if I want to write it or not yet.  
-You know, I think I've screwed up a few of my facts. At one point they say they're in 7th year, but they're really in 6th. Also, with the Slytherin common room... I don't picture it like the Gryffindor one in the books or movies. I think I've changed my idea of it several times (cough... at one point it's like Gryffindor... at another the dorms are under the common rooms, which makes sense in some ways but not in others... and in these past few chapters, there's one stairwell that has stone steps and is rather wide, with the rooms for the Head Girl and Head Boy underneath. The steps lead up to an open hallway (there's a railing and you can see the common room, which is two stories high, from there). Each side of the hallway leads to a small corridor with doors to the dorms. On the left are the boys' dorms and on the right are the girls'. Tada. I'll draw it at some point, it'll make more sense.

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Kaaera** - Thanks! And happy late bday.   
**ApathyArtist** - Thankies! :)  
**Cliffe** - Hehe, guess you liked it then? ;) Sorry this chapter took so long!  
**Devona Wolfe** - Grins hehe, thanks!  
**LeeLeePotter** - Lol. I'm not sure about the little text separators... they really bug me when I read fan fiction, as well as author notes in the middle of sentences (don't those bug you? I hate when you're reading an exciting story and you're just to the good part and then there's a little (AN: blah blah blah BLAH blah...)... hehe)   
**ataraxis** - Thanks!   
**risi** - Me too. Lol.  
**Necromant** - :D  
**Clay**  
**Moni** - I know, isn't he? He'll get a clue, someday.  
**penny**  
**Ruth** - Not yet, the Death Eater meeting will be within the next few chappies though. I'm kind of worried, I don't think I'll write it that well... but I've never tried anything involving Voldemort and his cronies. We shall see. As for the water... you notice when it's lunch or breakfast and they ate by the lake, there's no reflection? It's just something I've noticed, reflections usually only show up as more than an outline or blob when it's dark. Dunno if there's anything scientific behind that besides the fact that at night water is dark and people are generally "glowy" with light skin. Hmm.  
**Winnie2** - Thanks. :)  
**Doneril** - I would prefer a happy ending too, lol.  
**Katie Lupin Black** - Oh well about updating fast... :S I wonder if I have any reviewers left, lol.  
**Saavik13** - I know, isn't it? XD  
**Ronda-Silverpaw** - You'll seeee....  
**Elmindrea-al'Thor** - Thanks! :D  
**Kouryou Sanomi** - xx Er... soon... yeah. Cough.  
**BURN THE R.U.M** - Awww, that's okay, thanks for reviewing anyway. :) I feel honoured to have loyal fans, hehe.  
**botherreader** - MUAHAHA! You are the savior of the story that kicked my butt and got me writing again. Thanks for the review, lol, I needed it. How's two days for you? This fic shall not die. Er, at least I hope not, for my own sake, my reviewers might come after me with torches and pitchforks....

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

..

C**h**_**a**_pter F_o_ur_t_ee**n**

"What am I going to do?"  
Students milled around in the courtyard, on one of the last nice days of the year. Padma and Harry walked together near the doors, waiting for Hermione.  
"Well, it was Snape, mate, it was destined to fail."  
Red rose out of nowhere and stained Harry's Zabini-ish cheeks. He groaned.  
"I'd still rather have him not knowing who I am," he said, looking the other direction. The Ravenclaw next to him grinned as he spoke.  
"You're blushing," he told him, grin never fading.  
They turned around for the third or fourth time, turning the corner around an edge of the castle, and were faced with Pansy.

They both stood there for a few seconds, oblivious to Padma watching them with a confused expression. Pansy eyed the blush and her lip curled.  
"Potter. Get out of my way."  
She spoke his name like it was a piece of trash. He was rooted to the spot.  
"Sev–"  
"Either call me Parkinson or call me professor, Potter."  
"Severus."  
"Potter–"  
"As funny as this little bickering argument is, Hermione's over there, Harry, and I want to meet with her before lunch ends."  
"Then go," Harry said, eyes not leaving Pansy's. It was a silent challenge between them, who could keep from breaking the stare the longest. Padma looked from Harry to Pansy and back again, and shrugged, thrusting her hands in her pockets as she walked away.

"What're you trying to keep doing, Potter?" Pansy stepped closer, muttering in his ear. "Can you not see that I have no..." here she smirked, "_interest_ in you?"  
"Stop–it–" Harry muttered through gritted teeth, trapped between the wall, the 'squick', and Pansy, and not being able to will himself to push her away. It would involve touching her.  
As if she could read his mind and tell what he did not want, she leaned in tantalizingly closer, not quite touching, but warm breath tickling his ear as he spoke.

"You will never amount to anything, Potter. Nothing that you earned purely through trying, at least. You just have fame that makes you important." She backed away, lip still curled in sadistic amusement. "And that particular importance may make someone weaker than I attracted to you, but I am, unfortunately for you, immune."  
Harry opened his mouth to retort, but it caught in his throat when she finally touched him, holding his chin and keeping his gaze level, not that it would have sunk at this point anyway. Her moves were mocking, just like when Padma–_that idiot_, Pansy added in her head–had claimed she'd been trying to seduce him. "Hmm," she commented mildly, as if she were speaking of the weather. "You are so easily affected."  
And she walked around him, disappearing around the corner.

McGonagall and Padma were waiting for him when he caught up to them, heart flopping around inside his chest as he ran as though it had no real attachment to anything inside. By now it probably didn't, he figured, slowing down. _It just sits in there making me nervous on occasion._  
"What'd Snape say?" was the first thing out of Padma's mouth. McGonagall turned to send him a glare before looking back at Harry. She couldn't withhold her curiosity completely, but she did so much more effectively than Padma.  
"Nothing," Harry said, tramping along next to them, making them walk again.  
They didn't press him any further, at least after McGonagall glared at Padma's open mouth.

Tuesday morning was rainy.  
The owls were slow, coming in all at once and milling around before they had to deliver stuff and leave. Some would land at the wrong table to steal food before delivering their parcels or letters.  
It was two days until Halloween, and over the past few days the weather had become progressively colder. Some students refused to accept the sudden coolness to the air and had just given up their habit of wearing nothing over the thing Hogwarts robes, shivering under heavy winter cloaks in Care of Magical Creatures classes.  
Next to him, Crabbe took a seat, stifling an enormous yawn while scooping several eggs onto her plate, followed by several pieces of bacon. Harry watched this with both amusement, remembering how Ron used to always pile his food, and amazement. It wasn't every day you saw someone other than Ron take that much food at once.

A barn owl had landed on the opposite end of the table, and was moseying along towards the other end, shaking its soaked wings and tail over people's breakfasts and occasionally sneaking on with small bits of toast. Harry was somewhat surprised when the thing stuck its leg out at him while simultaneously stealing a slice of Crabbe's bacon.  
"'Nnoying li' bugg'r, in't 'e?" Crabbe said through a mouth full of toast as said owl continued its stroll down the table. Harry used his finger to slit open the blank envelope groggily, squinting at the words on the parchment he pulled out. They certainly took their time before forming coherent words and sentences.  
Apparently Ron, enjoying his safety in Gryffindor, wanted to meet him. Harry bitterly regarded the short note, as whenever Ron was involved, Draco was sure to linger.  
That only ever meant sadistic chaos, anyway.

His first class was Care of Magical Creatures with Gryffindor, and while Harry was reluctant to miss instruction–as the teacher was one of the few left who assigned homework–Ron and Draco firmly led him away from the rest of the group as they entered a marked section of the Forbidden Forest for a lesson. The rain had died down a bit to a sprinkle.  
"Have they met yet?"  
Faced with an important question so early in the morning, Harry simply waited for a further explanation, raising an eyebrow.  
"Stop that, Potter, it doesn't suit you," Draco told him as Ron said, in disbelief, "the Death Eaters, dimwit."  
"Ah." Harry stretched, taking his time, wishing that Hagrid's hut's roof extended a bit more. "Not that I've heard, but you know, Pansy isn't exactly talking with me. Crabbe'll tell me when they do."

"What'd you do now, Potter?" Draco asked conversationally, polishing his wand with a handkerchief. Ron was smirking.  
"She–he–bugger it, Snape found out who I was."  
"So you told him?"  
"I didn't say that–"  
"How else would he find out?"  
"I am _not_ telling you how, Malfoy, go bother someone else." Harry began to turn around and was mere centimeters from Pansy, then took a step back, tripping over Ron's foot, prompting him to say, "Blast it, Potter, make up your damn mind!"  
  
Harry grumbled as he got up out of the mud he'd landed in. All three of the Slytherins or, for the time being, ex-Slytherins looked faintly amused.  
"What?" he asked impatiently, casting cleaning spells on himself while trying not to get some on the wand, because, after all, you can't point a wand at itself.  
"Professor Hagrid told me to come and get you three," she said boredly. "Said you all have detention tonight with Filch unless you get back to class this instant."  
They followed her to rejoin their classmates, who watched them silently, even after Hagrid had asked for their attention again. After they'd turned away, Pansy elbowed him.  
"What were you telling them?" she hissed. "Why should you trust them? One of them could be a Death Eater–"  
"One of them _was_ a Death Eater," Harry shot back, and opened his mouth to continue, but was then made unable to by Pansy's automatic reaction.  
"WHAT?" she screamed, and the class shrieked with her as some surprised people in the front knocked people over like dominos by slipping in the mud. "How _could_ you–" She punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. As he doubled over, she hooked a leg around his and knocked him into the mud, jumping on top of him. Hagrid's voice boomed uselessly over the chaos and the patter of rain.

By eleven in the evening, Pansy and Harry were well into their fourth hour of detention and had not spoken a word to one another. Trelawney supervised with a tired eye, saying just as much as they had, and often turning to stare out the window at the sky for minutes at a time.  
They were cleaning all of Trelawney's dusty objects. Of course, there was no point in it–it was just to give them manual labor. Trelawney's class was a free period. Harry quickly wiped at the dust on a crystal ball and roughly passed it to Pansy, who already had several waiting for her, as she was finding the spots Harry had missed and drying them. He rolled his eyes.  
There was a clatter and a shriek from the floor below and Trelawney twitched, shaking her head and tripping over the edge of a rug as she left the room to see what the ruckus was.  
They continued working in silence, each too stubborn to say anything.

_CRASH_.  
Trelawney hadn't been gone an entire minute before Harry showed a brilliant streak of clumsiness, dropping one of the things. They both stared down at it in horror as things in the room began to come to life with a sudden surge of wind; the countless lamps with shawls draped over them flickered on and off as the shawls blew out the open window. A sort of dark glittery shadow seemed to be leaving the crystal ball at the present moment, and as it made its steady but slow course to the window, Pansy had the sense to shout the repairing spell.  
Lights went out, as well as the candle Trelawney had been using to grade, which had amazingly not been snubbed by the winds. These winds stopped as well. The glittery thing moved in slow motion backwards as well, slowly disappearing into the creamy crystal ball.  
That done, they glanced at each other and Harry burst out laughing.

"What?" Pansy asked impatiently, wiping a nonexistent speck of dirt on the newly-fixed and entirely clean crystal ball.  
"Your hair... it's all in a pile on your head...."  
She blinked, patted her hair, and grumbled about the disadvantages of long, curly hair.  
"Hey, you already had long hair before being changed. At least you didn't go from looking scrawny to looking utterly pathetic."  
"You speak the truth," she answered with a small grin, which was replaced with a wince as she tried to tug a conjured comb through her hair.

Harry yawned. "What time you reckon it is?"  
She looked around in the dark for a clock and then shrugged. "Almost midnight."  
They dried off the last of the crystal balls to discover that they'd finally cleaned everything on the shelf, and in a matter of minutes everything was back on it, sparkling clean.  
"Let's go," Harry said, starting to the door.  
"Idiot, no, we need to wait to be dismissed."  
He stopped in his tracks and turned around to face her, incredulous. "Never had to before."  
She gave him a disgusted look and shook her head, but he slumped next to her on the sofa again anyway.

"So, er, I was wondering," Harry said, clearing his throat awkwardly. "When we're, y'know, normal again, will we be civil to each other or will it just go back to you hating me?"  
He tripped over his rush of words, and Pansy raised an eyebrow.  
"What do you think?"  
"Well it would be nice–"  
"You think so." She froze the next words in his mouth with an icy glare. "It would be nice. Well, look around you, Potter. Open your eyes. Since when have I ever been nice?"

"Well–"  
"No, Potter. As Snape. When have I ever been nice company, an understanding friend, a–"  
"Stop." Harry said, turning away. "Never mind. I just thought that since you aren't a Death Eater anymore–"  
"–That I should give them more reason to hate me? 'Oh look, m'lord, old Severus fell for our target.' That would go over nicely, Potter, I'm sure. Besides, you seem to be caring a bit too much for me. I can take care of myself. Worry about yourself, you've got more of a problem there."  
Harry lied back against her, sighing.  
"No, Potter," she said, words dying out. "This is exactly why you're–get up, I hear Trelawney coming–"  
The door opened as Harry sat up, and Trelawney stopped for a moment, eyes going over them with a raised eyebrow, then shaking her head. "I don't want to know. Dismissed."  
They left the tower quickly, and Pansy seemed to be varying her step so Harry couldn't fall into the same pattern next to her. Harry sighed and almost turned in the direction of Gryffindor tower before Pansy took his wrist to make him go the right way.

"You're not in Gryffindor anymore, Potter."  
"How'd you know I was going to Gryffindor?"  
"You can be thick at times. I'm a house head, it's logical this late at night, and I've been in your common room once or twice as a teenager."  
"Really?" Harry asked, yawning. "Why?"  
"To get back at your father."  
"Oh. What'd he do?" It wasn't an accusing, indignant question, just an innocent and admittedly sleepy one.  
"We're here, Potter," Pansy said softly, only remembering to let go of his wrist after they were up the steps and needed to head in different directions.


	15. Chapter 15: Nice Timing, Crabbe

Good day.

Hey, if you're an As Told By Ginger (that's a cartoon) fan who likes Carl/Blake slash, I just finished a four-chapter story featuring it. Just thought I'd advertise, woot. Just click my name and the story is called _Love and Hate_.

Some notes about this chapter:  
-Remember the weird thing that happened when they broke the crystal ball in the last chapter? That's probably not going to be brought back up. That's just what I imagined would happen if you broke a crystal ball. I mean, there's got to be _something_ in there... I mean, what makes all the foggy swirly things that crazy people see pictures in?   
-Severus is a big meanie sometimes. I know. I'm keeping him as true to his character as I can while forcing him to follow the story. But I promise that there will be a mostly happy ending eventually, okay? :)  
-You can't beat Padma-in-Crabbe's timing.  
-I love wards because I can make up stuff about them. --"  
-Dumbledore-in-Goyle knows more than he really should, but hey, he always does.  
-And I just had to do it... something so entirely unoriginal... something done in a million and _three_ other romance fan fictions, more than half of which where never finished because they tend to pair this with Mary-Suedness... something like introducing a winter ball to the plot. Ahhh, please don't kill me. At least in this story, Dumbledore has a very specific reason. --" I'm sorry! It won't become a major part of the plot, I promise. begs mercy

Feel free to review. :D

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville  
Trelawney - ?

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**leeleepotter** - Yes, it definitely is. About the identities - I would think that a bunch of normal teenagers, all thrown together in one big mess of age groups, probably wouldn't grasp the seriousness of the situation. People like Padma and Ron, who don't care who knows it's them, are balanced out by people like Harry, Severus, Blaise, and Hermione. But since Harry's always in the middle of _everything_ (how does he do it?), the more important characters know who he is. I checked back on my writing... I think the only times that it was said in front of general, unaware public were times when it was also whispered. Correct me if I'm wrong though, I can go back and fix that, along with a number of other little errors people have caught me with. Like the apparation on grounds. Psh, I can be stupid sometimes.  
**Ronda-Silverpaw** - Aww, thankies!   
**Cliffe** - Thanks. :) Your reviews are the encouragement that keep me writing!   
**Kaaera** - Thanks for the review. :D See my first note way up there about the crystal ball.  
**ataraxis** - It's great to be back too   
**Elmindrea-al'Thor** - Yep... going to be a freshman (ahhh scary O.o). That's good news too, someday they won't reject my short stories and poetry, just gotta keep trying. Thanks for the review!   
**slytherinsela** - :D  
**Chaows** - Thanks, and here's your update. :)  
**owlri** - Okies!  
**Dark-Lady-Devinity** - Lol, they'd better get their bodies back, endings are hard to write. :P More Neville-in-Snape... hmm... I dunno, maybe he'll turn up later. Have you read my mini-fic Reflection? That's all Neville-y and stuff.  
**magicalme32** - Thanks. :) Oh, and I think most people do - it's too confusing the first time around, lol.  
**penny** - :D Thanks!  
**Katie Lupin Black** - Well that's uplifting, I was hoping I wasn't making Pansy too out-of-character. : Does it seem like she's, er, crying too much? Maybe it's just because I reread countless times for revisions, haha. And they better not make us reread _To Kill a Mockingbird_, I already recycled my notes....

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

..

**C**h_a_p**t**e_r_ F**i**f_t_e**e**n

"What–what is this?!"  
Pansy had walked to the door of the classroom she did training in to discover Crabbe at the head of the class, directing them. She'd stared for a minute or two, unnoticed, and then had found her mouth to speak.  
No one really seemed to want to say anything. They shuffled around a bit, pawing at the ground like nervous hippogriffs.  
"I kind of took over for you yesterday when you got detention," Crabbe finally said. Pansy's eyes landed on him. "And why are you all here now? Your training begins in five minutes. Not one of you, not one of you has ever been early–"  
"I told them to come back here twenty minutes early to review," he answered nervously.

Pansy was silent. Regaining some sense of control over her actions, she pointed a hand at a random Death Eater in the room. One would never notice the slight shake of her arm except for Crabbe, who disregarded it. "You, Malfoy. Do a reflective shielding charm."  
When the Slytherin hesitated, she shot an embarrassing but altogether harmless curse–Jelly-Legs Jinx. He hesitated a second too long and the spell caused the dance that followed. Another Slytherin muttered the countercurse, and Pansy only said, "Hmm. Try again."  
This time, Malfoy was ready; he sent up the transparent blue spell in between himself and the curse, and the Jelly-Legs narrowly missed Pansy's left ear on its course that ended up disintegrating an innocent candle in the line of fire.

Pansy nodded. "You'll need to learn to aim. Bullstrode. Block a Body-Bind." The Slytherin, caught by surprise, stepped aside automatically. The curse passed her and towards Crabbe, who put up a simple shielding spell that snuffed it.  
"I'll disregard the fact that I asked you to block it, Miss Bullstrode, and will instead mention that your reaction time is better than average." Pansy missed the rather proud look Crabbe had as she straightened her robes before turning her head towards him. "What did you teach while I was gone?"  
"Several shielding spells, Jelly-Legs, and the Trip Jinx," Crabbe recited, confidence coming to him in leaps and bounds.  
She narrowed her eyes at him, frowning. "And how did you teach this many spells to them when I can't ever seem to teach them all two in one classtime?"  
His confidence left him, and he almost visibly deflated.  
"Well, sir–er, ma'am... uh..."  
"Parkinson."  
"Well, Parkinson, they... don't like the way you teach all that much...."

"Is that so?" She crossed her arms. The movement was so simple and comforted her more than much else at these rather vulnerable moments. The moments when it came back to her about her personality and how far from perfect it really was. The moments when her foolish mind let these things get to her. _They don't like the way you teach, Severus. They don't like what you teach. They don't like you, Severus._  
Inside Crabbe's mind, however, was a very different thought pattern. _Smart move, Patil. Ding ding, wrong answer. You're in for it now._ He wondered how to patch up this fatal mistake.  
"Well–you tend to expect them to know everything the minute you show them it. It just doesn't work that way. They–they need a more patient teacher. They–"

"And you think yourself to be exactly what they need?" Crabbe hesitated like Malfoy, the expression of trying to remember how you are expected to react in the face of danger–and Pansy continued. "You imply that I do not know how to teach?"  
"Well–um. No. I mean, you need to be more patient but–"  
"Interesting. Please leave."  
"What–"  
"You seem to know enough to get you past the world's worst madman to date, so you are free to leave. If at any time you deflate enough to admit that you are wrong, you may come crawling back to me and _maybe_ I'll let you rejoin the class."  
"Sir–"  
"_Go!_"  
Faced with nothing even remotely dignified left to say or do, Crabbe retreated to the door, glanced back in, and left.

Pansy turned back around to a silent class. Someone coughed.  
"I don't believe I've taught you the Body-Bind. It's alarmingly simple and impossible for the user to get out of once they're in it without outside assistance."  
She continued teaching halfheartedly, writing the incantation phonetically on the chalkboard, giving several slow examples, and finding herself getting completely frustrated when they didn't seem to get it.  
Dismissing her class several minutes early, she fell tiredly into the teacher's chair, burying her head in her arms on the desk, knocking over a bottle of ink and smashing it, not caring as the magical substance sept into the aged carpeting.

_They don't like the way you teach, Severus._ The voice of McGonagall came to mind. She'd told her once years ago and then never said another word about it. Years of being called the greasy git now piled upon her, causing her to crunch more and more into the ball. Isolation was safety from others.  
"I know they don't," she told the empty room, then sat up, wiping at her eyes, glaring at nothing, and left for the Slytherin commons.

"What's wrong?"  
Pansy turned to face the crackling fireplace. Harry's face appeared in her line of sight, almost upside-down. "Severus?"  
"Don't." She flipped again. The couch creaked below her as Harry slumped back into place in front of her, and clung to her arm when she turned away again.  
Silence.  
Harry looked the opposite direction of Pansy. "You know, when I said that one of 'em was a Death Eater and you jumped on me–all I told them was that you found out it was me."  
"They're not supposed to know who I _am_ though, Potter, so your stupidity–"  
"–But I think Draco's new _love interest_ has pretty much gotten him out of trouble, besides the way I saw him nod during Dumbledore's speech," he plowed through her words.  
"Draco? I'm a dead man," Pansy said, slumping further into the couch. "Who's his damn love interest?"  
"Blaise Zabini."  
She stiffened next to him. Harry's eyebrows shot up and then back down at her next question. "You?"

"He's quite taken with him, apparently," Harry continued, intending to draw this out as long as he could. "Bloody good kisser too–"  
She flipped back around and stared up at him with a face that said it was trying to be blank but was having an extremely hard time about it. "Malfoy kissed–"  
"And–"  
"Malfoy kissed you? You let Malfoy kiss you? I thought you l–well," Pansy looked suddenly uncomfortable. "I rather thought that you would prefer... anyone... to Malfoy.... You seem a bit taken with me, don't you?"  
Harry grinned. "Actually, I rather meant the Blaise Zabini that is currently in Ron's body, but seeing as you like to jump to conclusions–"  
"I did _not_ jump–"

"Oh come on, admit you're wrong for once," Harry said, pulling himself closer to her. "You don't have to be all self-protective and stuff, you know. I would've hoped that you'd have noticed that I don't intend to thwart your every ambition like my father." Closer. "I don't want to be like my dad to you, you know."  
She didn't seem to really know how to respond to that and instead surrendered to the part of her that wanted to let him kiss her. Her eyelids fluttered shut.

"Professor, I–er, maybe this isn't the best time–"  
The voice of disaster about to happen.  
Harry jumped up in surprise and fell off the sofa, banging his knee on the table in front of it, and landing on the icy stone floor. The arm of Pansy's he was holding on to went with him, and she ended up face down in the cushions. "What, Patil?" Her words were muffled by the pillows.  
"I just came to admit my wrongs and kiss your feet," Crabbe grumbled, offering Harry an arm to help him up.

"That's good, you can go." Pansy carefully sat up, wishing to continue where they'd left off.  
"That's it? What, you're not going to take this chance to publicly humiliate me?"  
"No public to humiliate you in front of."  
"Hello?" Harry called. Both ignored him.  
"Wicked," she said, and turned. "I'll just leave you two to it, then. Although I suggest you get a room if you're going to do much more than–"  
"Your welcome is quickly dissolving, Patil–"  
"Right then. Thanks, professor."

She turned back to Harry, who was in the middle of a yawn, and she lost anything remaining of her desire to revive anything of the moment.  
"You know, I'm going to give up wondering why you find anything worth wanting in me," she told him, glancing up at the clock. It was a little past ten already.  
"That's good, because you probably wouldn't get anywhere anyway."

The next day was Halloween, accompanied by the usual feast and early end of classes. There was no speech, no really relaxed atmosphere–just a polite sort of air about. Students did eagerly dig into pork roasts and puddings, however, but many left early.  
Glancing up at the teacher's table, Harry didn't see any sign of Lupin, who was probably still recuperating from Tuesday's full moon. He pitied whoever had to go through the horrors of being a werewolf, hoping that someone had thought to assist them; from what Lupin had told him over the years, transformations were painful, and even with Wolfsbane, one needed to possess amazing amounts of self-control to keep the things and people around them–and themselves–from being severely injured.

He turned back to his table, overhearing a snippet of a conversation between Crabbe and Malfoy and realizing with a start that it was about Draco's streaking in his body. Feeling his ears grow warmer, he realized that he'd never live that down. He had a sudden disturbing image of Colin Creevey, wildly snapping wizard photos....  
At another end of the table, whoever was in Hermione's body had come over to talk to Millicent Bullstrode. They appeared to be arguing, but when Millicent grinned and waved Hermione off, he realized they'd been joking around.  
Harry found that he just wasn't enjoying the festivities, and rose at the same time Pansy did, across the table; as Crabbe glanced over, Pansy sunk back into her seat, not taking her eyes off Harry until she was seated again. Then she cast them over in the direction of the Ravenclaw table. Sighing and leaving, he wondered if he'd ever manage to gain her trust.

Testing a stupid idea, Harry leaned down to retie his boot laces behind a suit of armor, and smiling to himself when Pansy exited the Hall a minute later.  
"Hey Severus," Harry said, and she jumped slightly as he hurried to walk at her pace. "Feasts just not your sort of ordeal?"  
"I always leave feasts early," she grunted, looking away.  
"Ah. Well, I usually don't, but hey, no one to really talk to today, unless you want to." He grinned sheepishly when she gave him a 'yeah right' look. "Or not, whatever."

They walked to the commons in silence, and Harry ended up leaving for a shower, so Pansy opened up her research book on wards and continued looking for something that may allow them to reverse the effects of the wards.  
Wards were a risky business. One could certainly reverse the effects, but there were countless more ways to do so that shut off the wards for a certain amount of time, which would allow the original spell to perform its purpose, whatever that was. They'd assumed that it was a mass Avada Kedavra, but it could be just about anything unpleasant. Make them all slaves... or slowly mutate them... or roast them all to death... there were a number of bad things it could've been.

She _had_ been working on this in the past few weeks. Potter problems and Death Eater training had held her up slightly, but she'd managed to at least pinpoint an area between the steps in activating any ward. Pansy intended to ask Dumbledore what wards he'd used after the feast was over, so she could eliminate some of her possible options.  
Finally the clock struck seven; Harry had come back into the commons already but just sat across from him, playing silently with a pack of wizard's cards. Pansy stood, magicked her research so it would fit in her pocket, and left to find the headmaster.

"Lemon drop?" The usual ritual.  
"Eh, no thank you," Pansy said, opening up her notes again. "I need to ask what sort of wards you placed on the castle."  
"Ah, yes," Goyle said, leaning back in his chair. "A variety of complete simpler ones, protection from Muggles, anti-map wards, anti-apparation too. Since the events of last summer, we also started to put up wards to keep Occlumency from going through them, in hopes that you would still teach Mr. Potter, but Voldemort would have a smaller chance of getting to him through dreams in case you didn't. Actually, that ward was the only unfinished one at the time. All the other ones have been finished for years."

"Did you continue constructing it after we were all switched?"  
"No."  
Pansy was feeling a sinking feeling somewhere in her stomach... the ward had probably been a variation of the normal anti-Occlumency ward created by Dumbledore himself, if it allowed Occlumency inside but not to enter from outside. But it could prove more useful if....  
"Did you keep notes about the stages you were at? Did you record the exact spell used to add to the wards when you created it? Did–"

"Calm down, Severus, of course I did." Goyle stood up and left the room for a moment, and Pansy felt suddenly much relieved; maybe she could finish the countercurse before Christmas, even. It was then that Pansy realized the presence of Dumbledore's bird Fawkes, who chose that particular moment to fly over and land in her papers, swooshing them in every direction. She tried to back her chair away and ended up toppling onto the floor, clutching her head and spewing Latin curse words. Goyle entered to see this scene.  
"Here they are, Severus." He swept his wand around the room and Pansy's papers gathered, and he put the several pages he was holding on top, picking up Fawkes and allowing the bird to fly back to its place. Pansy rose, brushing off her robes and reseating herself. "Is there anything else you would like to ask me?"  
"No, thank you Albus," she responded and began to stand, but Goyle waved him back into the chair.

"The school spirit has been considerably dim this year, have you noticed?" Pansy made a scoffing noise, but the other boy ignored him. "Even at today's feast, the atmosphere was strained! I suggested to the teachers and Minerva that we cancel classes the day before winter break and instead hold a ball similar to that held during the Triwizard Tournament–"  
"No," she interrupted flatly. "You are not going to use this opportunity to make P–Zabini cling to me further, Albus–"  
"I'm sorry, but seeing as you aren't currently a teacher, Miss Parkinson, you have no say in whether or not we hold this Winter Ball or not," Goyle said, smiling impishly.  
She stared at him. "You're just going to bend my identity any way you want, aren't you? Need help with wards, I'm Severus Snape, but hold a Yule Ball and I'm Miss–"

"Oh, open up Severus. Just let yourself go for once. You're always so obsessively on top of everything. You don't have to be, especially now. You can–"  
"I _don't_ have to _be_–?" she roared. "I don't _have_ to be?! Every night I train Death Eaters who have no clue what they're doing because tomorrow might be the day, _tomorrow might be the day, Albus_! I–"  
"But you have the whole day to be whoever you want to be as Miss Parkinson, Severus."  
"I want to be who I have been being," she said stubbornly, feeling the anger drain out of her and knowing a surrender was near.  
"But Mr. Potter seems quite attached to you, in any case. Do you want to disappoint him?"  
"As Snape I lived to disappoint him," she said flatly.  
"I mean now, not then."

"Eh." She frowned. She knew where Dumbledore was getting at. Playing with her emotions, manipulating her so she did what he felt was best–Hogwarts was the man's chessboard. "Not really," she found herself saying, and broke eye contact to glare at Fawkes blearily. Her body spasmed as she sniffed, trying so hard not to cry that it was making her head hurt. _This body seems accustomed to crying at the worst moments_, she noted. _Miss Parkinson must cry a lot. Brat._ "It's _wrong_, Albus. I shouldn't–"  
Goyle was silent, listening to the former Potions Master babble until she couldn't think what else to say and clenched her jaw in a way that looked rather painful. "You know, there's no rule against student-teacher relationships recorded in the handbook," he informed her with a shrug.  
Pansy stopped crying in an instant and her head shot up to stare at Goyle so fast it hurt. "You–"  
"Good day, Severus," Goyle said cheerfully.


	16. Chapter 16: The Tension Builds

Okiedokie, here's chappie Sixteen!

I'm seeing another possible minific, about Trelawney and some other side characters who are no big part of this story but who do play a part. Probably won't get written for another few chapters, but we'll see.

Also, I've worked out a timeline for a few chapters ahead, finally. Now I actually know in which direction the story is heading. We've got some confused!Harry-ness coming up.

Some notes about this chapter:  
-Stupid WordPerfect isn't working, so I could only guess at where the italics go. I've missed stuff, I'm sure. Sorry.  
-I finished this chapter past midnight this morning. Please don't blame me if it's bad. xX I know, this is another "filler" chapter - I'm sorry! This one's important in setting up two entirely different plot elements for the next three or so chapters. Just gotta have it.  
-I guess I'm kind of messing with your minds with Crabbe, aren't I? When did she stop being crazed Crabbe? O.o Anywho, she'll just be getting more and more important as the story progresses.

Feel free to review. :D

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville  
Trelawney - ?

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**Katie Lupin Black** - Thanks.   
**severus's-bane** - :D Your review was inspiring, thanks!  
**Elmindrea-al'Thor** - :)  
**ataraxis** - Here's more.   
**Lee** - Ack, probably not, you can just let your imagine go there. """  
**Ruth** - Whee, someone has faith in my abilities, awesome.  
**Penny** - :)  
**Chaows** - I've been calling everyone by their body name - try and read it that way, sorries!  
**Kaaera** - Oh, Crabbe's going to mix up more than just that. That's the beauty of it.  
**risi** - That's no mistake, with him referring to Harry as Harry - Dumbledore knows all. We've seen evidence in the books.  
**Cliffe** - Thanks. :) They have yet to kiss knowing who they each are - remember the kiss by the lake shortly before Harry figured it out.  
**Skullz** - Hahaha, awesome. My loyal readers, muahaha.  
**Ronandchicken** - Er... if you don't like slash, why are you reading a slashfic? O.o I can promise you that it's only going to get slashier from this point. But, hey, I'm flattered that you'll stomach something you don't like for my story, lol.  
**Kristen** - :D

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

..

_C_h**a**pt_e_r **S**i_**x**_te_e_n

A dazed Pansy Parkinson stood outside of the headmaster's office.  
"Thanks a lot, Albus!" she half-whispered, giving the door a glare that would melt weaker doors. "Thanks for proving once more that you can make me do anything you want me to!"  
She knew she had to be going insane when she thought she heard a faint, 'you're welcome, Severus.' Even so, she wouldn't put it past the man.

Crabbe found himself glancing at the doorway every several seconds as she taught the Death Eaters. Pansy would probably be pretty sour if she were to find him teaching again. Thus, when she finally did appear, he quickly stepped back into his peers, not wanting to be the odd one out.  
"Crabbe?" He looked up at Pansy. "I want you to teach them about aiming with reflective shields."  
Heart pounding rather quickly, he gulped down a mouthful of air. "You want me to teach them, sir?"  
Pansy looked up from her ward research at her. "Need I repeat myself?"  
"No, s–ma'am," Crabbe said quickly, and turned to the class to begin instruction.

The class period ended smoothly enough, and Pansy called Crabbe back as she tried to leave with the rest of the group.  
"Yes sir?"  
"You're going to teach them the rest of the basic curses, jinxes, charms, countercurses–I made a list, it's somewhere in this mess. There's just no time for me to try and teach them when they clearly do better with you in charge. I will take over with the more complex spells, curses, and countercurses, and show them how to improve their reaction time and the more practical things like that. Ah, here's the list."  
Crabbe took a long parchment from the other Slytherin, gave it a quick glance, and looked back up at Pansy. "But these are all–really easy," he said, eyes falling back to the ground when she looked up at him.

"When you face the Dark Lord, you will be punished for flinching or looking away. As I'm not in my usual body I cannot teach that with full impact, but you will need to learn that. And they're easy things because the students trapped in this could very well be younger–in any case, they'll be in trouble if they don't know how to do these."  
"Oh."  
"Yes, oh. Get going unless you want to walk back to Slytherin with your greasy git of an ex-Potions Master." Crabbe put his books away quickly, but surprisingly enough, stayed. Pansy walked quickly, trying not to give this much thought.

"Sir, er, ma'am, whatever, I wanted to ask you." She looked over at him mildly. "Is there any chance of–erm. Having the Unforgivables cast on us?"  
Pansy shrugged. "There always is."  
"Is it likely to happen?"  
"With the way things have been going under my instruction, definitely. If you can finish teaching them and possibly manage them when they practice the things I teach while I'm working on ward research, there is much less of a chance."  
Crabbe nodded, going straight up to the dorms upon their arrival to the common room.

Harry lay on his bed, and Crabbe straightened his own blankets on the bed to prepare to meditate.  
"You know, I think I know what you see in him," Crabbe told him, wrapping the curtains around the posts of the bed to keep them open.  
"You do?" Harry looked up from Care of Magical Creatures homework. "What's that?"  
His dorm mate crossed his legs and put his fists in front of his knees, bowing his head and closing his eyes. "Don't you know yourself? Deep down there somewhere is a gentle sort of Snape. Amazingly intelligent and sharp, but sentimental and sweet."

"Ah," Harry said, nodding dazedly. "Interesting way to put it. I might quote you when I try to explain it to Ron and Hermione again."  
Crabbe smiled.  
"But, you know, it's kind of like he's a bit lost in there too. There's a whole lot of snow and ice in there, it's kind of hard to find anything warm. I don't think he trusts anyone. I want him to be able to trust me." Harry stretched. "You know, that looks relaxing."  
"It is."  
Harry said goodnight and happy Halloween and turned off his lamp, lying under the covers, deep in thought.

Across the castle and floors above, Draco rolled over in a red and gold four-poster, whimpering.  
"What is taking so long?" a voice like nails on chalkboard demanded in a hiss. "I told you to get Zabini a month ago. His father's already dead, why isn't he?"  
The other figures in the room seemed to shrink from the looming presence before them.  
"We've lost all contact with Hogwarts, my lord, ever since you called Snape traitor. Perhaps he is not the spy, perhaps one of the slimy little–"

"Severus Snape has been spying for Dumbledore for years, Macnair. The fool Fudge has revealed to Lucius that it is so. We have other evidence as well. Do not defy your master." Voldemort turned to another figure. "Goyle, where is your son? Is he not a dedicated Death Eater?"  
"I don't know where he is, my lord."  
Pacing in the direction of the unlit fireplace, the Dark Lord growled.  
"There isn't time." He picked up a vase, holding the dusty remains of fifty-year-old flowers. "There isn't time to organize a way to make Potter stray from that loving old fool Dumbledore before he finishes sixth year and can begin preliminary auror training, unless the Death Eaters stationed at Hogwarts respond. Then he will be a threat." The vase shattered as Voldemort threw it down, and that is when Draco fell off his bed, landing in a tangle of sweaty limbs.

A lamp flickered to life, half-blinding him. "Malfoy? You up?"  
"Zabini?" Draco looked up at the four-poster next to his, seeing Ron's face peeking through the curtains. "Another stupid Potter nightmare," he told him, sighing.  
"Oh." Ron shifted and opened the curtains wider, and Draco invited himself onto his bed, stretching. Ron nervously gave him some more room, and Draco rolled over so he was facing him.  
Ron was the first to say something. "Are you just playing with me, or is this going to keep going when we're switched back?"

Draco was silent, closing his eyes. "Well, at first I was just playing to amuse myself. I guess my family just isn't used to affection or something. I'll continue it if you will," he said with a shrug. "It's up to you, Zabini, I don't know much about... long-term relationships. I'll probably have to keep pleasing Parkinson to please my father though. Would you really want to tangle with a Death Eater?"  
"You haven't gone back to the Dark Lord so far. I won't tangle with a Death Eater, but I'll tangle with a spy."  
Draco smirked. "Sure, Zabini."  
"Oh, and I want to be able to use first names, alright... Draco?" Zabini said, smirking back.  
"Alright. Blaise."

By November fourth, a Monday, news of the winter ball being approved had spread; Pansy reluctantly acknowledged its existence. The idea of students passing lovesick glances between one another was almost too much for her to bear; there was no chance she'd let Albus rope her into this.  
It was bad enough, too, that the bodies of the now-blonde Harry and Ron, who she now knew housed Draco Malfoy and the actual Blaise Zabini, seemed to be in a pair wherever they went; when they started collectively smirking whenever they saw her and Harry in the same room, it was much worse.  
But she was actually surprised. Harry had yet to ask her to it, had yet to even mention that he was going. The idea of him not going or, worse, going without her surprisingly made her feel lonely. She wasn't accustomed to feeling lonely. She didn't get lonely. She'd always been reserved. And by now she was cursing her own indecisiveness; she didn't want to go yet she didn't want to be forgotten.

"Well, you have to do something, mate." Padma bounced a ball off of the wall of the presently empty Ravenclaw dormitory she slept in. Harry, seated on a rather itchy, shapeless bean bag chair, followed it with his eyes. "Right?" She stopped to look down at him.  
"She doesn't _want_ to have my company though. I mean, think of all the feasts and parties and what have you of the past, when has Snape ever looked at home at one of them?" Harry scratched his side, deep in thought. "I don't want to ask her and feel stupid when she says no."  
"So you'd rather not ask her at all and babble to me, asking for advice?"  
Harry laughed rather nervously.  
"Come on. She said yes about the date that I suggested–"  
"–And then realized I was me–"

"That doesn't matter. She still said yes. She's still been a bit comfortable around you, hasn't she, though?"  
Harry was silent. Pansy _had_ looked like she was about to kiss him back. He could've sworn that he saw her eyes fall shut before his own had. _If Crabbe hadn't walked in at precisely the wrong time, would she still have–?_ "I guess so." He remembered, through sleepy confusion, a slight pressure of a hand on his wrist, steadying him up the stairs in the dark common room, slipping off at the last moment. "Yeah. I'll ask her."  
Padma grinned. "When?"  
"Err." Harry scratched his head this time. "Tomorrow?"  
"You're putting it off," she told him, obviously finding amusement in the situation. Harry realized she'd moved so she was hanging off of the bed, looking at him upside-down. The ball had rolled away a few minutes ago. "Tomorrow you'll put it off until the next tomorrow... and tomorrow... always tomorrow. Try today."  
"Sure," Harry muttered in resignation. "Today. Fine."

However, by the time Harry had reached the Gryffindor commons at a quarter until eight, a certain batch of stomach-dwelling butterflies were telling him that tomorrow was a better day to ask. Harry did his Care of Magical Creatures and Transfiguration homework both and by nine o'clock she had nothing else to use to procrastinate. Glancing up at Pansy, she saw that the girl was engrossed in what he assumed was more research. The butterflies were telling him to leave her alone. So he did.

Lunch on Tuesday was a loud affair, as Harry, Padma, and McGonagall had given up eating outside with the growing chill and darker afternoons; they spent their lunches at one of the smaller tables that seemed to have appeared that morning, when the winter ball was officially announced. The chatter around them was deafening–of dancing and candy and Christmas and the winter ball. Harry dreaded the first sentence to come out of Padma's mouth as they sat down.

"What'd she say?"  
McGonagall looked up from a stack of essays she was marking as Harry tried to come up with some perfectly reasonable excuse for her having no response.  
"Er... I... forgot?" he asked, the end of his sentence drifting into nothingness.  
"Ha ha. Mate, I told you to ask her to the ball yesterday! What if, like, Malfoy asks her out first or something?"  
Harry made a face. "Not going to happen, Ron. Besides, he's busy with _your_ body."  
The colour drained from Padma's face as McGonagall spoke up. "You really should ask her soon, you know, she might expect you to."  
A nervous laugh. "This is _Snape_ we're talking about, Hermione–"  
"Exactly. How much do you know about Snape?"  
Padma had just begun to sputter as Harry finally answered. "Not all that much, actually...."

"Who's in _my_ body?"  
"Well you better ask her soon, in any case, Harry. You never know. He did get stuck in the body of one of the–well. Rather sought after females in sixth year."  
"Hey Blaise, can I eat with you all?"  
Padma clamped her mouth shut the second that Harry glanced back to see Crabbe over his shoulder. "Sure, have a seat."  
Silence.  
"Err... have you been introduced? Crabbe is Padma, Padma is Ron, Mc–"  
"I prefer my identity to be undisclosed," McGonagall said shortly.  
"Sure, Granger. Er, what's wrong with him–er, me? Her?"  
"Ron? Ah, I think he's still panicking because Blaise is in his body and you know, Malfoy–"  
Crabbe laughed, and the four of them attempted rather clipped conversation.

Pansy glanced up from her wards work, sighing. It was Saturday, the ninth. She was feeling slightly preoccupied; it was rather difficult to focus on ward work when a student was teaching what you were supposed to teach, and doing a better job than you ever could. The Death Eaters in training listened, they _tried_ and they usually got at least five new hexes, charms, or defensive spells done in one class.  
The now-wrinkled list sat on the corner of the desk, with various notes, incantations, and wand movements in the margins. Things were crossed out, circled, and question marked; it really did look like the boy knew what he was doing.

She turned down her lamp, sitting back in her chair and watching the students practice. Crabbe had been having them pile the desks at the edges of the room and replace them at the end, with good reason, apparently; the desks were heavy, and manual labor would certainly make the Slytherins stronger.  
Looking down at her own notes for lessons, she frowned. She'd probably have to start alternating classes with Crabbe by next class; the things she had yet to teach were certainly important. Rehearsed answers. Facial and body expressions. Eye contact. How to act. Simple defensive Occlumency. With a wince, she remembered the end of her short bout of teaching Occlumency to Potter. He must have seen her must vulnerable moments. She'd thought it gave him fuel to hate her even more. _Maybe it actually gave him some sort of tenderness towards...._

_Nonsense_. She scoffed to herself, earning a few curious glances from Slytherins that she ignored. _The only reason he's even interested in me at all is because I'm in the sluttiest female Slytherin's body_, she tried to reason with herself, feeling herself failing miserably. _Such denial, Severus_, echoed a soft, Dumbledore-like voice. She squeezed her eyes shut, and the voice returned. _Just let a youth fall in love. You need it yourself._  
She slammed her hand on the desk at the exact moment that a booming roll of thunder crashed somewhere a few miles away. All of the students stopped training to stare at her.  
Feeling rather stupid, she dismissed them half an hour early, sinking her head into her arms on top of her research.

"What's wrong?"  
She looked up quickly. So they hadn't all left. Crabbe was shuffling some papers around.  
"I'm not talking about it." She stood abrubtly, slamming the thick, nine-hundred page volume shut. _Stupid. Who writes books that long anyway?_  
"Oh. Him."  
Now she gave the boy a glare, picking up her wards things. "I said I don't want to talk about him. Frustrating brat."  
"What, did he already ask you?" Crabbe asked curiously, tilting her head. "And you said no? Or yes. Wait, what?"  
"Ask me what?" Pansy asked him, feeling an odd flutter in her stomach, which she hid behind her book.

"To the ball?" he clarified, scratching his head. "Guess not. Ah well, don't worry, he will soon."  
"Why would you think that?" she asked as he turned to head for the door.  
Crabbe turned back slowly, giving her a long stare. "You are in serious denial, man." _Funny, Albus just told me that. I must be going mad._ "Wake up, Snape, Harry Potter has something a bit more serious than a crush on you. What're you going to do about it? Brush him off continually and hope he goes away? He sees something in you. Something that I don't think anyone else has seen. Are you just going to let this opportunity go to waste?"  
She set her books back on her desk, calmly enough, then buried her hands in her own hair, feeling her head shake from the jitter in her hands. She looked beyond Crabbe, to the still-piled desks.

"I don't know," Pansy whispered.  
"Well, figure yourself out soon. I think he'll still feel the same when we're changed back, y'know. It's not like he ever talks about what you look like now. It's about what you say and do, mostly."  
Feeling distant, she nodded. Her eyes landed on her notes. "We're going to need to start switching teaching between one another. I need to get these things taught, quickly."  
Crabbe came closer and looked down at the neat little margin note. "You know, for Occlumency at least, if you taught me privately, I could likely teach them quicker in my time. I only have about ten more spells to teach, then I just have to review and practice practically."

Pansy shook her head in slight disbelief. "Do Hogwarts a favour and teach here after you graduate." She again picked up her research. "I'll start teaching you tomorrow after training. Potter might also be able to teach you _something_."  
"Harry knows Occlumency?"  
"Several lessons worth, if he bothered remembering it."  
"You taught him?" Pansy nodded, raising an eyebrow. "Oh. You know, there was a rumour for a while last year that you were teaching him Remedial Potions."  
"Mr. Malfoy is gullible," she answered, shrugging, and starting for the door.

Harry sat on one of the Slytherin commons' sofas, waiting for Pansy to get back. He was feeling slightly more confident, but knew it was only because she wasn't here; but he was determined today. He'd finally ask her.  
Slytherins started coming in. This was usual; they always came back before Pansy. Looking around to find Crabbe and get encouragement, however, he noticed that the boy wasn't back yet.  
_Weird_. He shrugged, thinking nothing of it.  
Fifteen minutes later, both Pansy and Crabbe entered together, talking in hushed tones to one another, starting automatically upstairs.  
Neither noticed him, even as they walked in separate ways to their rooms.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the snap of the last door. Come to think of it, Pansy and Crabbe had been coming back together every day recently. He didn't understand. Pansy seemed to not even notice Harry to be _annoyed_ these days. And hadn't Crabbe said, just days ago, that he understood what Harry saw in her...?  
The only reasonable explanation clicked into his mind, and he deflated, sinking into the couch. They were... they clicked where she and Harry didn't, perhaps? Maybe Severus Snape wasn't gay after all. He scrubbed at his eyes, not wishing to go up to bed and share a room with a traitor.

Seated at last on her bed, Pansy tucked the research away in her cupboard. Kicking her legs absently, she hit the edge of a trunk under the bed. Curiousity overwhelming her, she pulled it out and opened it.  
_Yuck_.  
There were several year's worth of rather... extremely-casual wear in the suitcase. She saw the disgusting dress robes Pansy had worn only once, at the Yule Ball during the Triwizard Tournament; there were also stockings, minuscule tops, and ultra-miniskirts. There were some small containers of what looked like thick, coloured potion tucked in one pocket, which she recognized to be Muggle nail polish, and a number of bras.  
Snapping the trunk closed, she slipped it back under the bed.  
Which brought an entirely new matter to mind. _What the hell am I supposed to wear to the winter ball if he does ask me?_

Shoulders slumped, Harry finally surrendered to his dormitory, falling into sleep immediately. Of the three, Crabbe was the only one to have a normal, relaxed sleep.


	17. Chapter 17: Preparation

I present to you at last, chapter seventeen!

Some notes about this chapter:  
-I apologize for taking this long to write this - but it is nine whole pages, so woot - I was feeling uninspired and am self-conscious about my ability to write certain aspects of the plot that I am leading up to. I've never written Voldemort, for instance, save for Draco's occasional nightmare. I feel like I'm trying to neatly wrap this story up far too quickly and not getting to enough romance in that time - face it, my stories need plot to survive, heh.  
-As for this particular chapter, it doesn't end on a cliffhanger for once - just a spot that I figured was stoppable at - because I need to post this today, before I go off on a mini vacation for 4-5 days. It will get more exciting from here - I need to cover everything important so the next things make at least some sense. The next chapter will hopefully have more events taking place, if not as long. (But who knows - I've only got a rough idea of what will happen, so maybe it'll take, oh, 9 1/2 pages or something. :B)  
-This is shameless advertising, I know, but in the wait between this chapter and next (it will be a while - I won't be able to write between July 13th and 18th), I suggest that you read my three new fan fiction short stories - A Good Reason (rather stalkerish HPDM, if you're interested in that pairing - I'm not, really, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone :P), Insecurities (HPSS), and Reassurances (HPSS, the companion piece of Insecurities). All three are one-shot and wrapped up in one chapter, so you wouldn't be getting into another huge story like this one, hehe.  
-Statistics! This story, after the completion of this chapter, is quickly becoming a longer and longer one. There are 41,879 words (excluding author notes for all but chapter one), 90 pages, and I'd like to give my 300th reviewer (holy crap, 300 reviews) Kouryou Sanomi a cookie! ::awards cookie:: Yay! :)  
-I've been reading some HPSS by Shadowpheonix, and I must say, it's amazing stuff. ::Pokes:: go read Fine Lines, it's an amazing story, even if it does mostly take place in New York.

**Also!** I've never had a beta reader and it's been suggested that I find one. Any volunteers? I'd need someone who understands grammar and can constructively critisize parts that need it and can catch errors so I can redo them. If you're willing to do so, I wouldn't mind an e-mail about it at adrienneATcnicheDOTcom (ugh, ffn deleting special characters in text is rather inconvenient if I say so myself). Thanks! :D

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma Patil - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville  
Trelawney - revealed in chapter 17

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**ataraxis** - Don't worry, Harry will come to his senses very shortly. :P   
**Ruth** - :S Hope I'm not too predictable....  
**Pilas** - :D Thanks, glad you liked it!  
**Kaaera** - Yes, Harry is quick to assume things, isn't he?  
**moseys-dragon** - Thanks!  
**Winnie2** - :D  
**risi** - Well... we'll see....  
**Chaows** - Ack :S No, don't worry, I don't mind constructive critism - it is necessary, really, I plan to rewrite parts of this before trying to submit to the PSA, tie up loose ends and such. I'll try and be more careful about that in the future - and if you see any more instances where that happens, please tell me about them. :S  
**Lady Doncaster** - :)  
**wwwendy** - :S Am I that predictable? Anyway, to answer your questions... one would think that the little Death Eaters (haha... ::coughs:: anyway) would have a basic idea of Pansy being Severus. As for the other ones, we'll see....  
**Doneril** - See my note above about that. I'll try and work more in! Honestly!  
**penny** - Here's more! :)  
**Katie Lupin Black** - Thanks!  
**Kouryou Sanomi** - :D Thanks for being reviewer 300.  
**severus's-bane** - Don't worry, it'll happen.  
**Cloudburst2000** - Thanks for reviewing, it was extremely helpful - I'll watch what I'm doing with the pronouns and reread again for them in the future. As for Padma knowing how to use the Map, I'm pretty sure that I had written that she overheard him once - if not, I'll go back and add it once I finish the story and rewrite it. If I may ask, where are the confusing points? I have taken your suggestion about a beta reader and am looking for one. :) With referring to characters, I've been trying to refer to them as the body they're in, for everyone except Harry and Draco - and some characters refer to others in dialogue as the person who's in the body. I'll need to figure out something appropriate, or indicate where the point of view changes in the future. Thanks again for your review, it really was helpful!

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... both Blaise/Draco and Harry/Severus... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations. :D

.---.

C**h**_a_pt_e_r Se**v**_e**n**te_e**n**

Pansy's eyes opened five minutes before her alarm was set to go off, at six.  
Turning it off, she stretched and silently changed into another set of school robes. Refusing to wear Pansy's tiny slip to bed, she'd been sleeping in her robes. She picked an ivory comb off of the cupboard and absently ran it through her hair for about six seconds before it caught a tangle. And another. And another.  
Twenty minutes of hair warfare later, she retreated to the showers instead, working conditioner through the curly locks, feeling oddly cut off from the world. More so than usual, that is.

Harry rolled over at a quarter after the hour, but once he was awake, the dorm's coolness got to him and he decided he had to get his robes on. He yawned while he undressed for a shower, and after showering tried to make his hay-colored hair do something other than fall in short waves around his face. Used to a messier hairstyle, he reluctantly came to the conclusion that he was just destined to have hair problems. Getting dressed, he left the dormitories, passing Crabbe's now-empty bed with a sigh.

They came face to face in the balcony-hallway, both pausing. Harry was the first to go down the stairs, averting his eyes and not saying anything. Crabbe watched this, unseen from his seat by the fire, in curiousity.  
_Did they fight last night?_ he wondered, realizing that it wasn't possible. Pansy had gone upstairs with him. _Wonder what's up._ He stretched, looking into the flames, waiting for breakfast.

Pansy tried not to let herself think anything of it, the look Harry had given her. She wondered if Harry was just tired of her, wanting to find a boyfriend (_or girlfriend_, she reasoned, insides contracting) closer to his age. She glanced out the window. It was still dark, the winter months made the days short and rather dim. As she saw the forest, she saw ward work ahead–probably that which she would have to go outside and study the wards up close–certainly not her pastime of choice. Indeed, whenever she did do it, she ended up finding exactly what she didn't want to find in the wards, and would have to rethink her entire approach to the situation.  
But that was to do at night, when no one was allowed out to bother her. She certainly wasn't worried about expulsion, Albus could do little in that sense when they were all switched. They had to all stay in one place or the Dark Lord would catch on.

Glancing at Harry again, who was silently doing the end of what looked like the Transfiguration essay, she sighed. She had yet to do that particular essay. Of course, she could certainly win her way out of it with Dumbledore, claiming she needed the time to do Death Eater training and all, but she had a very large pride in those areas. Besides, that would draw attention to herself. Especially since Granger, inhabiting Minerva's life impeccably, probably knew by now who she was. At least she assumed that Minerva was Granger. Seemed like the only likely student.  
_I'll do it later._ She leaned back in the sofa she'd seated herself in a few minutes later. The next thing she knew, she was waking up at the sound of the clock over the mantle chiming seven times and the rustling of robes of the few students already down this early heading off for breakfast.

"I just..." Harry stopped in the middle of a sentence, cringing. "I thought that Crabbe wanted nothing to do with Sev–Pansy, whatever, you know? And then she says she knows what I see in her and starts coming back from training with her every night...."  
"I think you're fretting too much, Harry," McGonagall said, sipping her coffee, as Padma gave her bit of advice, which was: "Ask Pansy to the ball before Crabbe does."  
"I think they're in it together though!" Harry said with a sigh. "She's just been ignoring me because she's always with him."  
"So you're going to sulk about it, Harry? Make her jealous!" Padma exclaimed, like it was the logical thing to do. Harry and McGonagall both glanced up at her.  
"How?" he asked her.  
"How?! Go find some other pretty girl and start hanging out with _her_."  
"That's disgusting, Ron," McGonagall said, sliding away from her.  
"Well, hey, they should expect broken hearts anyway, they don't know who we are."

"Hey guys," Crabbe said, sitting next to Harry and taking some toast off of the tray in the middle of the table. Harry gave Padma a strained look where the boy couldn't see it, but she just shrugged back. After about a minute of silence, he looked around at the three of them. "Something wrong?"  
"Nothing at all," McGonagall supplied, kicking Padma under the table, and starting a short conversation about teaching that managed to last until Draco and Ron pulled Harry out into the hallway.

"Potter, seriously now, are your dreams real or something?"  
"Ugh, I don't want to be confronted by this problem right now," Harry told the two, looking somewhat longingly back into the Hall. Draco ran a hand over his messy, bleached blonde hair. The roots were beginning to show. "They sometimes are. Last year they... weren't though...."  
Seeing a distance in his own body's eyes, Ron nodded, not questioning further. "Describe it, he can decide if it's real or not."  
"Eh. I was watching a Death Eater meeting, they've lost contact with Hogwarts, Dark Lord's mad because he hasn't recruited Blaise, knows Snape's a traitor, wants to get you before you can begin auror training... etcetera."

Harry blinked. "When was this?"  
"Halloween."  
"Huh." Harry clutched his right wrist with his left hand, again noting how bony Zabini's wrists were. "Well, it certainly sounds real. Why's he want to get Zabini there?"  
"Revenge," Ron said simply, shrugging.  
"Ah. And he knows Sev–Snape's a spy? Does Snape know they know?"  
"I don't know, Potter, you're the one dating him."  
"Not really," Harry said, before hurrying to keep speaking so Draco wouldn't get curious, but the boy raised a dark eyebrow anyway. "So he at least feels that when I begin auror training, I'll be more threatening?"  
"Apparently." Draco shrugged, eyebrow still raised.

Harry frowned, and leaned back against the wall next to where Ron was. "So, are you going to being a Death Eater once you're in a body that Voldemort _won't_ kill you on the spot in? Or has being the 'golden boy' dramatically changed your views of the light side?"  
"Actually, it's not being you that's made me decide to become a spy," Draco said, giving a smug smile and putting an arm around Ron, whose eyes went up to the ceiling almost immediately. Even after rolling his eyes, though, he smiled. "It was Blaise."  
"I... see. You don't need to go into any more detail, if you don't mind," Harry said, coughing.  
"I wasn't planning to."  
"Good."

"Yes. Now, what about you and Snapey?"  
Harry made a face. "Snapey?"  
"Needs a pet name, doesn't he?"  
"Eh. I don't think he'd _let_ me give him a pet name, let alone... _Snapey_." Between the two talking, Ron was doubled over in silent laughter, so they spoke face-to-face over him.  
"Still. What's supposedly wrong now?"  
"Eh. Crabbe and Pansy seem rather fond of spending time together."  
"Ever heard of friendship? Wait, never mind, Pansy hasn't," Draco muttered, shrugging. "It's still amazingly funny to hear about your dramatics."  
"Gee, thanks," Harry grumbled as he left, heading automatically to Gryffindor commons before he remembered he was Blaise Zabini and therefore Slytherin. His own body and Ron laughed at him as he passed the doors going in the other direction.

Sundays always were rather dull. Too cold to go outside and too boring to stay in the nearly-empty commons, Harry set out for a walk around the castle.  
He ended up near the tower down the corridor from the South Tower, and leaned against the wall outside the open arch and staircase, deciding it was too cold to go outside without a cloak on. He smiled to himself sadly; this was where he realized that Pansy was Severus. He never would have wanted what he wanted now before they were switched–what he wanted now would have seemed completely crazy, not to mention suggesting that he was going mad.  
Hell, maybe he was. Harry wanted Snape to love him back. _Statement worthy of St. Mungo's, eh?_

It just didn't make much sense though. What would Crabbe want with Pansy? He sighed, realizing that it just didn't make him mad, just... tired. What was it that made every relationship he tried to get into completely screw up?  
Well, Ron's advice, perhaps. Chuckling to himself, Harry looked up at the ceiling, smiling, and then realized that he heard footsteps.  
It wasn't like he was out out of curfew–heck, this was their free time to roam wherever they wished–but he didn't exactly want to talk to anyone at the moment. Taking a look in both directions and then next to him at the open arch, he shot up the steps just before a second year Hufflepuff happily walked by, unaffected entirely.  
He was already halfway up the spiral staircase; it wouldn't hurt to go all the way up, he decided. Rubbing his arms with his hands, he slowly ascended, nose trying to adjust to the suddenly much cooler temperature.

He was kind of expecting himself to be the only one up in the tower, but realized with a feeling of stupidity that towers were often frequented by students and teachers alike on weekends. He didn't exactly expect to find the Divination teacher up there, though, and the mere sight of her exaggeratedly bushy hair was enough to make him start to turn around. He cursed his heavy footsteps, because she glanced over her shoulder and greeted him, before looking back out at the Forbidden Forest.  
Sighing to himself, Harry dutifully reminded himself that the teachers had switched too. He moseyed up next to her, looking out over the decorative edging of the castle; he could see almost half the student body on the grounds, in small clumps on the pathway, or singled out by the lake. It looked just like what Hogwarts looked like from here on weekends when they weren't switched, in fact.

It startled him almost, how much he'd become used to being Blaise Zabini, a Slytherin instead of a Gryffindor. They'd all grown used to their bodies. And some even liked the change. Many didn't, though. He pictured McGonagall for a brief second in his head for some reason; sitting at a desk piled in books, marking essays and listening to a spell that was reading off from a Potions book to her. She must've been continuing her studies. _Only Hermione._  
Blinking, a different picture came to mind. Pansy. Harry gripped the stone harder, and the teacher next to him glanced over. Pansy in a dungeon with Crabbe, laughing....

"Something wrong, Blaise?"  
The words came and the picture broke up, and he realized again where he was. "No, I'm fine. Was thinking about stuff."  
"Ah. What's on your mind?"  
"Er... dunno, it's just all jumbled. I need a pensieve or something."  
"Hmm. Do I know you?"  
"Er... I dunno, maybe? Are you a teacher?"  
"Yep. I taught here three years ago too...."  
Harry wracked his brain for the answer. Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Lupin. "Professor Lupin?"  
"Indeed."

Harry grinned. "Hey, it's Harry," he told her.  
"Shh, don't let anyone know," Trelawney told him, but looked delighted. "Enjoying being a Slytherin?"  
He shrugged. "Well, yes and no." His eyes followed the path of a tawny owl as it swooped out of a window some floors below. "I have found some... friends... I never would've had... but there are still complications."  
She smiled, watching the bird also, as it swirled in graceful circles, enjoying flight. "Complications, you say?"  
"Well..." Harry was frustrated at himself. He was too open. "Nothing I can really talk about."  
"That's alright, Harry. If you ever need someone to talk to, my quarters are right below the North Tower."

"Thanks," he told her, smiling. "I'll keep that in mind." _On a second thought_, he decided as he stared off at the students more, _they're more mixed up than we'd ever be normally. Different years, sexes, houses. That would never happen normally._ On a sudden whim, Harry glanced up at Trelawney and asked, "Did you still transform on the full moon?"  
To his surprise, she sighed and ran a hand back through her hair. "No, but I had to mentor the student who's in my body. I will continue to do so, I suppose."  
Harry winced. "You never do get a break, don't you?"  
She smiled sadly. "Not until death."

Pansy, with a goofy grin plastered on her face, chuckled continually for no apparent reason. Crabbe, however the sight of the girl doubling over in giggles had been entirely too funny at first, had begun to worry. He couldn't remember the counter-curse of the incorrectly-cast Cheering Charm, and there was some doubt to whether Pansy would be amused when he did figure it out.  
"Blast it," he muttered as he flipped through a textbook. Upon finding the spell to undo his mistake, he immediately fired it at Pansy. The girl shut up immediately, slowly bending up and giving Crabbe a death glare. Her curly hair stuck up in all the wrong places. Even Crabbe had to admit that she looked pretty damn scary.

"You'll need to work on your multitasking skills." She tried and failed to smooth her hair with her hands, finally just giving up. "You shouldn't fire off random spells while trying to guard your mind, unless you're sure of where you're aiming. Focus on getting your mind blank enough that there's nothing to see."  
Crabbe nodded, glancing up at the clock.  
"Go ahead, just practice making your mind blank. Try to get something out of Potter, or at least teach him something. You took so long to find the countercharm to the Cheering Charm that it's nearly time to go anyway."  
"Alright sir." Crabbe left, wondering how he was to go about doing what Pansy had requested. _It certainly didn't sound like Harry got all that far either. I don't particularly blame him, actually._

Said Potter appeared at the common rooms at the same time as he did, from another direction. Crabbe greeted him cheerily enough, but he didn't really seem in the mood to talk.  
"Hey Blaise."  
"Hi. Where's Pansy?"  
"Uh... back there somewhere. Why?"  
"What were you doing?"  
Crabbe gave him a funny look. "I was learning Occlumency." Harry's ears went pinker for some reason. He looked away after stepping into the commons after him. "Hey, she said you might know some, can you show me?"  
"I... don't remember any." _Well, it's half-true, really, I haven't practiced it ever since the last lesson...._  
"Oh. Ah well, I can bring you along and she can show us both. You probably need it more than I do." He gave Harry a grin and left before he could protest; just what he needed, more time around Crabbe and Pansy.

He'd been reminded of the pensieve. Harry slowly went up the steps, passing several bickering first years on the way up. As he turned to the boys' dorms, Pansy came into the commons, sporting rather messy hair; they both paused, glancing at each other for a second before she ducked her head and hurried through the common room to the girl's dorms, no one noticing her except for Harry.  
As he sat on his bed, he sighed. He really should take Occlumency. It was a skill that he needed to match in battles with Voldemort or he would certainly make himself a much easier target. But Occlumency reminded him of the pensieve, where he'd seen just how arrogant his father really was. Even compared to Sirius, who had constantly bickered with Snape whenever in the same vicinity, he was horrible–sure, Sirius had tried to get Snape bitten by a werewolf but... _oh, never mind, they were both pretty bad._ In a twisted sort of sense, maybe it was good that he didn't grow up so arrogant....

Even when he thought of Malfoy, who he still very much considered an arrogant git, they'd never done anything to each other that was permanent or irreversible. Malfoys were just gits. Snape... well, he was a bastard too, but Harry had seen him vulnerable and it wasn't something he particularly looked forward to. He'd never been nice, but he'd never been _evil_. And he seemed to try and save Harry's life every year, too, that had to count for something.  
And no wonder the man found it so hard to see Harry as Harry instead of James; they were almost identical, really. But it almost insulted him. He used to love being compared to his father, but now it disgusted him. They were so different, why couldn't Snape see that?  
Maybe he just didn't want to. Maybe Crabbe was just easier to get along with. It didn't really make sense, but nothing ever did anyway.

Death Eater training was particularly trying that night. Pansy had begun to teach again–and this class was about facial expressions, something that normally was a hard-earned skill that came after being punished several times. She knew this; that's how she had finally learned. She wanted them to get it right the first time–her students under Unforgivables was something she didn't care to see.  
"The way you stand, the way you hold your head, where your eyes are–they can give away what you are thinking even before you betray yourself verbally. You are a servant of the Dark Lord, and must therefore give him that respect. You may not slouch in his presence," she said, stopping in front of a seventh year, who looked at the ground as he shifted so that his stance was rigid. "You also must keep your eyes on him the entire time. He may not put as many outlandish expectations on his younger followers, but... rest _assured_ that if you do something wrong, it will be noticed."

"Clearing your mind is the first step to keeping your expression blank. You already know enough information to betray Professor Dumbledore and your..." she half-heartedly curled her lip, wishing she were elsewhere, "..._beloved_ Mr. Potter." She looked pointedly at Crabbe, whose eyes did not drop, but stayed, looking right into Pansy's. He was frowning. Pansy walked over to his end of the line.  
"You are frowning at my commands, are you not?" Heads turned to glance at Crabbe, and Pansy chose to address that issue later.  
"Sorry, ma'am."  
"Do not apologize to the Dark Lord unless you are begging for mercy. The best thing to do to avoid doing so and being punished is to not be noticed as anything different from the next Death Eater." She paced back towards the other end of the line. "As I was saying, your mind must be blank to make your face blank. This is also the first step to blocking unwanted access to your thoughts.  
"It doesn't matter what you do to clear your mind. All that matters is that you do so. Stay focused on the meeting and do not whisper among yourselves. This may have been a fun change of pace back in October, but right now it is an entirely serious matter. You could be summoned tomorrow. You could be summoned tonight. I cannot go with you and remind you of what to do, so your focus on reviewing and taking in this information is deciding whether you, and many others, live or die."

There was a silence as they took this in, and Pansy crossed her arms. "Clear your minds. Blank expressions, now."  
The line of students, lined up in the order they would need to line up in to join Voldemort's circle, visibly shifted as one; backs were straightened, hands were dropped, and they all focused on her. Walking down the line, she stopped once in a while to correct things. When she nodded to Crabbe, at the end of the line, she gave the group a look that one might venture far enough to call respectful.  
"It seems that you've begun to listen to my instructions at last. At ease. Walk to random spots around the room. When I tell you to, you will line up in this order once more and repeat the process you've just completed."

After several tries of this, Pansy was satisfied. "You're learning quicker than I expected. I imagine I could test your Occlumency once before you need to leave."  
And down the line she went. She really didn't care to find out about some of the images, but found herself enjoying the looks of horror when she inquired about them more than she probably should have. Malfoy's mind brought images of a rabbit... Gryffindor four-posters... cheering wildly at a Quidditch match... stubbornly trying to see something in a blank crystal ball... wandering through dark halls to meet someone. Closer to the middle of the line was Millicent Bulstrode. There was a circle of Hufflepuffs in a hushed corner of the library... a snake was hissing at Harry Potter and Millicent was yelling... a large group of students gathered around the golden trio in the Hog's Head... her hands were polishing a prefect badge. So far, all of the students had not managed to push Pansy out of their minds. She reached the eleventh person in line, a black-haired seventh year girl. Memories appeared in her head. And then there was Crabbe.

Crabbe was one of the few who had silently watched the proceedings, not moving anything except her eyes. These eyes were the same that followed Pansy's every move. _You have not failed to impress me yet_, Pansy noted, walking the two paces to stand in front of him. _Let's keep it that way._  
"_Legilimens_."  
The image in Crabbe's head was shaky, so different from the crisp memories that he'd experienced in their quick practice earlier in the day. That had to be good. The Yule Ball flashed on and off in her mind, and she fought to keep her expression blank even as the memories grew sharper. An argument with Parvati. Bunk beds as a child, resenting her twin for getting the top bunk. Activating Harry's map. _No_, he thought, as Pansy fought to get in and Crabbe fought to make her get out.  
Somewhere along the line she'd tripped into her neighbor, dropping her wand, and Pansy stopped the invasion. "Perhaps that was a bit more dramatic than was necessary." She turned and walked the few steps to the center. "Practice making your minds blank, I didn't expect for any of you to be able to overthrow the Occlumency anyway. Dismissed."

As was usual these days, Crabbe stayed behind. "How will you work on the wards while teaching, training me, and having to do homework?"  
"That can wait. Lives are more important at the moment." Pansy threw the cloak she'd discarded at the beginning of the lesson over her shoulders again, picking up the research she hadn't touched. "Was that Potter's map that you were looking at?" she inquired, stuffing some papers into a textbook and snapping it shut.  
"Harry's. Yeah." Crabbe watched Pansy's lip curl, even if it looked rather odd on the girl's face. "You've noticed how weird he's been lately, right? You should ask him to the winter ball if you're planning to go at all." A shrug. "He doesn't seem like he is going to ask you at this point."  
She looked at him, frowning. "Dances and social gatherings have no point."

"But are so important," he added, shrugging again. "I don't know–it's really up to you two, I guess. Keep it in mind."  
Just as Crabbe was halfway out the door, he heard Pansy whisper something. He glanced back over his shoulder. "What was that?"  
Pansy made a face. "I don't know what to wear, if I do go."  
"What, suddenly Parkinson has no clothes?" The look on her face explained it all. "Oh. Heh. Guess you don't want something pink and frilly then, huh?"  
A glare.  
"Well, I'll try and figure out something for you. I mean, you could probably just transfigure something into a dress, temporarily." Pansy looked particularly sour at the word 'dress,' no doubt recalling Neville's boggart from three years ago.

Harry watched them enter, and was surprised when Pansy's light-colored eyes went straight to him, in his sofa close to the stairs. For a moment he felt nothing but a twinge of envy for Crabbe, and then his anger flared before he had the chance to stop it. This girl–this Potions Master–had put her through so much self-analyzation and confusion that she couldn't help feeling pretty angry when she'd gone and chosen someone she'd only just stopped insulting every time they came into contact.  
So it was rather unfortunate that Crabbe disappeared into the dorms and Pansy decided to come and sit on the other end of the couch, watching him.

_He looks confused_, Pansy told herself, not bothering to hide how she was studying the boy's expression. Harry ran a hand through hay-colored hair, finally getting used to the thin, stringy texture of it, staring right back at her. _Should I say something?_  
For once in her life, she squirmed. "How're you?"  
The face that had been running through his hair covered his face for a moment, and when it dropped, Pansy shrunk away.

"How're you?"  
Harry tried to calm himself, taking in a breath while his hand was over his eyes, but it did little to stop the wave of emotions he was feeling. From the way she seemed to back further into the cushions gave him one more warning that he was being irrational, before he exploded.  
He was angry. He felt like he used to when Snape had baited him when he was younger, trying to rile him–and this time, he'd not even _been_ baited. It was an innocent, ignorant question that made him explode, and later Harry would find himself sheepish when she brought it up.

"How am I?" he repeated, shakily. _Oh, bloody hell_, Pansy thought, wondering what it was she'd done. "You're appearing every night after training, long after the other Death Eaters are back, with Crabbe. You haven't even _noticed_ me waiting for you every night. Damnit, I thought you were almost ready to admit to yourself that it doesn't matter to you if I'm me. I'm Harry! I want to be with you, Severus Snape, whether or not you choose to accept me for who I am and get over damn prejudices against my father and his friends. Guess what? I'm not my father! I never _was_ my father! I never will _be_ my father!" Harry took several calming breaths, looking the girl who was a meter away from him in the eyes. "What does Crabbe suddenly have that I don't? He–she–oh, whatever, remember Crabbe? The person who you kept insulting whenever possible? When did you two suddenly begin to enjoy one another's company? Going to go to the ball with Crabbe because she's not me?"  
Harry had yelled himself to silence, and was waiting for Pansy to yell back at him in return. It really was a stupid move, once he thought back on it a second later–ah oh, how the unreadable expression in her eyes was bothering him–

"I see."  
He blinked. "You–excuse me?"  
Pansy set her stack of research on the table with a sigh, looking back at him. "First of all, Mister Potter, contrary to what you may deem believable, I am not nor am I considering dating Miss Patil." Her sudden formality was making Harry's insides twist, and it took several seconds for the statement to sink in.  
"You're–you're not–?"  
"No." One of the corners of her mouth was threatening to go up. "Secondly, I know you're not your father. I've seen enough these past few weeks."  
Harry, knowing how important her pride was to her, nodded, feeling like he could dance around in glee but not daring to move.

"And... eh... if the winter ball is so important to you, fine, I'll be in attendance."  
"You'll go with me?"  
"Yes, Potter, I will."  
She noticed how close in proximity he had suddenly become, somewhat uncomfortably.  
"Please, quit calling me Potter," he said, and now that he was closer Pansy could see that he didn't look nearly as worried. "I'm just Harry."  
"Harry," she acknowledged, and he didn't miss the fleeting smile on her face.

.---.


	18. Chapter 18: And So It Comes

Oh man. I seriously never intended for it to take nearly a month and a half for this to appear on FFN - but it did. I had a bad case of writers' block, which wasn't exactly good news, especially since I started a new chaptered HPSS story, Side Effects, that I have been paying quite a bit more attention to. That paired with the gloom of the end of summer - although I am much looking forward to starting high school in a week on 8/30 - was apparently enough to do me in.

But here it is!

Rather unsatisfying, I suppose - but hey, it's a chapter, and I promise to definitely NOT take very long with the next chapter. I've outlined it pretty well, and know exactly what'll happen - it's helped me with Side Effects and it will help me with this, too.

I would like to thank **pilas** (my spiffy new beta :D) for beta-ing for me!

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma Patil - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville  
Trelawney - Remus

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

**ataraxis** - :)  
**Katie Lupin Black** - That's always good.  
**Tazthedevilman** - The way I have it outlined, the ball should be either two or three chapters away. Not really sure yet. O.o  
**Winnie2** - Thanks! :D  
**Dark-Lady-Devinity**  
**Pilas** - :D  
**S-chan** - Sorry I took so long :S  
**penny**  
**ironic-humour**  
**Marie** - :)  
**Chaows** - No confusion? That's a first. O.o A good one though.  
**silver-sunn101** - Glad you think that portion was in-character, I'm always feeling iffy about that. :) Sorry I took so long!  
**Craw/Brad** - :D  
**Ruth** - Thanks! :)  
**insanechildfanfic**  
**Doneril**  
**risi**  
**Mindy**  
**Teldra**  
**Rory** - Glad you liked it. :) With the years... I did slip once and say seventh year, but this takes place in sixth. I hadn't decided when I started the story and should probably go back and change it but I'm lazy. x.x;  
**lark277** - Thanks!  
**StolenDreamer** - :D Here's your update.  
**futago akuma-tenshi02** - I wouldn't like getting switched, myself... luckily we can torment the Potter characters to our heart's content....  
**Yuuki Miyahara** - ::blinks:: wow, that was... enthusiastic! Here's chapter eighteen, a day after you reviewed... aren't you lucky? :D

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... both Blaise/Draco and Harry/Severus... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations. :D

_C_h**ap**ter Eig**h**tee**n**

"What're you so happy about?" Crabbe had asked Harry irritably when he appeared in the dormitory at half-past eleven. As usual these days, Malfoy was still out somewhere, but Crabbe still got annoyed when anyone turned on the lights while he tried to sleep.  
"She said yes," Harry informed her, a goofy grin spreading across his face, cheeks slightly flushed. "We were snogging–"  
"Whoa, um," Crabbe coughed awkwardly, but he could care less. "I didn't particularly need to know that." He made a face. "Harry Potter snogging Snape is an image I think I would've been better off without."

"Oh, bugger off," Harry told him, falling backwards onto the four-poster, which squeaked in protest. "She's actually–we're going to the winter ball!" He closed his eyes, smile still quite visible on his face, even when Crabbe turned the lights out again.  
There was a moment of happy silence.  
The door snapped open, and Malfoy, as usual these days, stomped to his bed, turning on every light again on his way there. "Merlin, Lavender, what is so wrong with your life–"  
He disappeared into the showers, and Harry heard a shower door slam quite audibly through the walls. They looked at one another for a few seconds, then shrugged and turned off the lights, going to sleep.

Harry Potter's body, with bleached hair that seemed to almost glow in the dark, rolled over.  
"What is this, Lucius?" he whispered, feeling a sudden anger heating his body with rage. It was uncontrollable, this urge... to punish, to torment, but not to kill... not yet... not for this....  
_"This is what your wand gave us, my Lord. We don't really know how it's at all possible."_ There were flashes of pictures now, the odd, twisted, improbable sort one would find in dreams. They played in front of his eyes like a movie and somehow he knew that they were supposed to be memories. Lucius Malfoy, but it wasn't Lucius at all... long platinum blonde hair slowly turned into much shorter, browner hair, while a bushy mustache grew over a previously clean-shaven lip. Light-colored eyes grew darker as well, and the skinny form of the Malfoy grew wider, beefy even. The skin lost its creamy tint and purpled ever so slightly.

"It must have been altered! These are not the Potter boy's memories, Lucius. The boy didn't know of your existence until his second year of Hogwarts, and here are memories of you, years ago–"  
_"No, my lord–"_ The anxiousness filled him now, he would be punished, oh yes....  
"For this, you know that you must be properly punished–"  
"Draco, shut up!" a voice hissed urgently in his ear.  
Sitting up, and self-conscious for once, he apologized to the three curious boys that shared the dorm with Ron and himself, and gave the redhead a meaningful glance before going back to bed. Only several minutes later did it finally occur to him that he'd been shouting out Voldemort's words to the entire dormitory. Shuddering, he promised to tell Potter the next day.

Training of the Death Eaters seemed, to Pansy, to occur at a snail's pace. They were learning amazingly quickly, now that she taught joint classes with Crabbe, allowing him to point things out to them, but she could still feel a Death Eater meeting looming ominously. It was just in her mind, of course, but one should always take precautions.  
She had decided to approach Occlumency with more basis in theory than having it all be practice; of course Crabbe had decided to make Harry tag along, but she found that she didn't mind all that much. In fact, seeing how the boy was drastically improving when compared to the previous year's admittedly feeble attempt made her rather proud of her teaching ability. In turn, Harry seemed to actually be practicing, and Crabbe had been teaching Occlumency to the others as she learned it. They covered control of facial expressions quickly. Pansy speculated that since the students were no longer in their own bodies, facial expressions just weren't as automatic.

However, there was another ominous thing looming over the quiet mid-November days; the winter ball.  
Crabbe, having promised to help her with a dress, had yet to even mention it. She was beginning to feel desperate enough to ask her Hufflepuff roommate about it, but had decided to hold off on the idea at least a little longer.  
Hey, there was almost an entire month still.

It was almost the end of November until Draco got around to telling Harry about the dream, however.  
"What're you doing here?" Harry asked as his own body claimed the seat next to him at the round table he shared with his friends and Crabbe. "Yuck, you better make my hair black again before we switch back."  
"This is more important than your hair, Potter," Draco sneered, and glanced across the table at the other three before looking back at him. "Do you become possessed by the Dark Lord often?"  
Harry stopped, a spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth. Carefully setting down the spoon, he closed his eyes for a few seconds before answering. "What happened?"

"Remember the spell he cast on me the first time? '_Reminisce_'? Apparently that spell's meant to retrieve memories. But the ones he got from me were all twisted and wrong, kind of half mine and half yours I suppose." Harry nodded, frowning in thought. "So he got angry, and I got angry and started yelling out what he yelled to the common room–"  
There was silence. McGonagall winced.  
"Alright. We'll need to tell Pansy then."  
"Sure." Draco left, and Harry turned back to his lunch, sighing.

"It doesn't make sense," he told the others at the table, and later that day after Occlumency, Pansy echoed the same words. "Why hasn't the Dark Lord called them yet?" She nervously swept a hand through her hair, glancing over at Crabbe, who was cleaning up and pretending not to listen. "He apparently keeps _talking_ about summoning them out, and he knows they can sneak out undetected. He has missions for them, tasks to complete. So _why hasn't he called them_?"  
"Maybe he's caught on."

"I've considered that." She picked up her research, putting it in a bag and swinging it over her shoulder, the action looking entirely unpracticed. "The Dark Lord is a cruel and intelligent man. If he even had a hunch about what happened, he would go about disabling the wards immediately. We're only alive now because he hasn't figured it out." Looking over her shoulder, Pansy shooed Crabbe out of the room. Once he'd left, she sighed. "The connection of our mind and our body is a very strong, unbreakable one. By switching us, whatever curse the Death Eaters used wore down the wards, certainly, but it's also defied every written law of magic. The mind and body cannot separate," she stopped, idly tracing the edge of the desk in thought. "And yet, they have. Peculiar, at the very least." Harry felt rather out-of-place, listening to Pansy sort out her thoughts, unsure of whether he should have gone with Crabbe or not. She half-turned away, facing the door, though he suspected she wasn't really looking at anything in particular. "Through my research, I've found nothing. Nothing at all. We know that unfinished wards certainly curb the results of curses, but to what extent? What was that curse meant to _do_?"

"Kill us?" Harry suggested, as if it were rather obvious. It was, wasn't it?  
"I thought that at first too. But a simple Killing Curses wouldn't be affected by the wards. Perhaps the Lord did not use the standard mass Killing Curse, but it seems unlikely. Why create a new spell when you can already complete the job with a simpler one?" The hand not tracing the desk went to her forehead, rubbing small circles in. "He enjoys torturing others. It gives him unspeakable power, in fear. I think that it is far more likely that he planned a mass-curse intended to torment us, to make us fear him enough to put us under his control." Her voice dropped to a whisper that Harry had to lean in closer to catch. He was expecting a muttered 'bastard', or some equal murmur; what he got was "Impressive."

And he had to let himself admit, yes, he was–dating?–an ex-Death Eater. A Slytherin. There would be odd moments like this, when Severus would say something so entirely against his morals that he wouldn't know any way to respond. He would just have to take it in one stride, he supposed.

The first week of December created a new buzz of excitement, with Christmas decorations appearing out of nowhere one night, decorating previously bare hallways. Patches of students carefully avoided mistletoe, especially a rather large bunch hanging in the entrance hall; random students, male or female, were to be found in small groups giggling to one another.  
Almost two weeks into December and still no call for the student Death Eaters–it worried Pansy. While student-calling was not as often as the normal Death Eater gatherings, at least during the school months, it was still unusual for there to be no call after a warning. Or after a traitor was discovered. Come to think of it, it was unusual that the Dark Lord had told him that he knew of her being a traitor. Before, when traitors had been discovered–or simply suspected, because she often had to cover her own tracks with others'–the Lord would wait until they were at a large meeting, then torture them to death. She'd been spared, amazingly.

Her worry only intensified when Dumbledore announced that there would be a day of classes cancelled so that all students could visit Hogsmeade to buy their dress robes and Christmas gifts. While it would be a perfect time to badger Crabbe for help on her outfit, the entire student body would be unprotected by the wards while in the wizarding town. Would it not seem abnormal that almost double the number of usual students would be appearing in the town, the first time in the school year? Surely by now someone outside had noticed that there were no Hogsmeade visits....  
And, frankly, she had no idea what she was supposed to get Harry for Christmas.  
Bugger.

"Wands out," she told the Death Eaters assembled before her, though unnecessarily. Every one of them was holding a wand already. "Today Mr. Crabbe will be reviewing all of the techniques you've learned. Practical lesson. This will probably continue until ten tonight, but as I'm sure you've already completed all of your necessary assignments," she told them, leaving the end hanging, with no pity for the fool who hadn't expected a longer lesson now that they had finished simple Occlumency. "After that, you will assemble outside as though in an actual meeting, and will be practicing your apparation in the forest. Yes, we will finish," she told a seventh year with a skeptical expression. "Even if it takes until midnight."

"Everyone ready?" Crabbe asked, taking over. Two seventh years in the back were still talking. Stopping in front of them, they fell silent. "Do pay attention, no one's going to ask if you're ready in real life," he told them shortly. Then, without turning to look, he shot a Hurling Hex over his shoulder, smiling at the definitive popping sound of the curse ending on a shield charm. A few more curses were sent off at random before Pansy turned to stare down at her work.  
December 13th. A Friday. And damn, she was worried. She wasn't superstitious, but the night seemed to be different. Or maybe she was just apprehensive about the nearing ball. That was probably it.... Sniffing slightly to clear her mind, she focused her gaze on the words of the text below her. It was another of the countless books on wards in Albus' possession; and it also said the same thing as every other. Nothing of use.

"Pay attention!" Crabbe sounded agitated.  
Pansy looked up at exactly the same time the students in the room collectively gasped in pain, some sinking to their knees, some losing grip of their wands. Crabbe tripped into the desk, not falling but gripping it for dear life; one of the seventh years wailed.  
Shaken, Pansy stood, handing Crabbe his wand and helping various students up while conjuring masks and giving them to them. "Keep your eyes covered. Nott, please, stop your sobbing. Bullstrode, you'll need that–"  
"Keep your wits about you!" Crabbe yelled out to the chaotic classroom as he tried to tie his mask, hands shaking violently. His face was white, matching the mask. "Remember what you've been taught!"

"Keep your guard up at all times," Pansy was telling them, from the other side of the room, tying Nott's mask on for her. "Please, for the life of all of us, don't betray Dumbledore."  
"Out to the Forest," Crabbe told them, and they all ran as a group, down flights of stairs and to the double doors in the back of the school, panting by the time they'd gone around the lake and reached the line of trees.  
"Good luck," Pansy said, gritting her teeth as Nott sniffled. "Look the same–act the same–listen–"  
"GO!" Crabbe yelled above her, the stinging in her arm probably more than simply sickening by now.  
And in several hurried pops, they were all gone, leaving Pansy alone to worry about their cooperation and their lives.


	19. Chapter 19: Meeting

Heh heh heh, so much for being quick about that update? -Hides-

I won't waste time coming up with excuses; all it was was school, and then my forgetting to work on it. I've actually been a lot more interested in my original fiction lately (six awards in regional Scholastic... gold and silver national Scholastic awards!... tomorrow, 6/26/05, is the first day of a week-long writers' camp at a university that I'm going to). Yeah, I suck. And I totally lost the outline for this. --;; And, also, I look back at this and cringe at the rather sucky writing style. This is the last old chapter, anything from here on out is all my newer writing style, whoo hoo!

I know what else you're thinking: what IS this? It's barely three pages single-spaced. Sorry sorry sorry. I'm slowly getting back into my fan fiction writing inspiration (Side Effects needs an update too) and have been reading fan fiction a lot more than I've been writing it... PWOW instead of HPSS... I know, the shame. But I was going to wait to get a longer chapter written, then figured you'd rather have a short, lame filler chapter that needs to be in here anyway (you would not believe the hard time I had writing the Death Eater meeting, and it wasn't even all that long or detailed a meeting) than have to wait even longer for more. This story isn't dead.

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... both Blaise/Draco and Harry/Severus... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations. :D

I don't have time to write thank yous for reviews this time (should be packing, should be packing... eep)... I love you all! -Glomp-

The characters we know of are (**body** - **person _IN_ body**):  
Blaise Zabini - Harry  
Crabbe - Padma Patil  
Goyle - Dumbledore  
Neville - McGonagall  
Ron - Blaise Zabini  
Draco - Lavender  
Padma Patil - Ron  
Harry - Draco  
Pansy - Snape  
McGonagall - Hermione  
Snape - Neville  
Trelawney - Remus  
Luna - Sprout  
Dumbledore - Trelawney

Oh, but some things people asked/commented on:

1) There is to be no sex in this fan fiction. Sorry if that turns off some readers, but I have no confidence in my lemon-writing abilities. O.o  
2) It is Professor Sprout in Luna's body.  
3) Trelawney is in Dumbledore's body. There was to be a whole bit with her messing up earlier on in the fanfic, but I skipped it because it added nothing to the plot. (Plot? What plot? I really need to outline this better...)

.-. .-. .-.

**_C_**_h_apte**r N**in_e_t**e**e_n_

Harry dropped his homework on the table he'd been working at when he saw Pansy coming into the common room. Tripping out of his chair, he got to her in time to catch her before she landed on the stone floor on her knees.  
She was paler than normal, and her hair was tangled, though nothing else seemed all that different from the usual. Ignoring a grunt when he picked her off of the ground and then teetering when he turned, he carried her to the couch. The other two or three Slytherins up this late paid them no attention, and one even left, giving Harry a nod.  
"They've gone," Pansy muttered, looking away when he sat next to her. "One of them is going to ruin–"

"Stop," Harry told her, crossing his arms as she continued looking away. She was acting quite un-Snapeish, and just the idea was enough to make him worried. "They'll be fine. They've been training for a long time."  
She closed her eyes, rubbing the lids and sighing. "If only. You did not watch them leave." The sudden change in tone startled Harry. "One of them was crying. Crying! There's no hope for them, Albus, any of us–"  
"Hogwarts students have an amazing ability to do the right thing when under pressure," he tried to reassure her.  
She snorted.  
"If only they had that attitude towards homework," she muttered.  
Harry gave a weak smile, but her eyes were still shut. They sat there for a few moments, both hoping that the students would be alright.

"No, no," Crabbe was muttering, tying Nott's mask back on in a hurry. "Quit sniffling! Breathe with your mouth if you have to, just don't make a sound!"  
"I want to go home," Nott whispered, choking over her words.  
"Just do everything the way you were shown, you'll be okay," he cooed to her, sharp tone softening. Oh, how much he missed home as well. And Ravenclaw tower–  
They left the woods, joined by a form that Crabbe guessed was Goyle, and entered a clearing, staying together in a huddled group, but going mostly unnoticed by the other Death Eaters. They were the last to join the circle, lining up in the rehearsed order; stepping into line slowly, as they'd been instructed. This was probably all of the Death Eaters, Crabbe judged, discreetly taking in the large circle of people around–if he was any less in control of his emotions, he would have shrieked.

There was only one gap in the circle, belonging to a Death Eater that was currently in the center, conversing with another, unhooded one. But this unhooded one had no mask–just glowing white skin, stretched tightly over a skull, and a face that invoked fear by itself. He saw only red slits for eyes before diverting his gaze, feeling nauseated.  
He discreetly glanced to his side, where an older Death Eater was standing, posture rigid, wand clutched in his right hand. Around the rest of the circle, the others were the same, almost identical if not for the long hair flowing out of some hoods. Eyes coming to land on the other student Death Eaters, he mentally thanked them for their staying calm. With a sigh, he tried to assure himself that they would come out of this alive, still worried beyond belief.

"It's been too long, my lord," they heard the Death Eater with Voldemort in the center say. Then the one who'd spoken turned its head to look at the students, and backed into the circle, changing to stand similarly to the other Death Eaters.  
"It has," Voldemort agreed. His voice was like rusty chains and tiger purrs, nothing more pleasant than nails on chalkboard. His eyes drew others to them like flies to flypaper. Crabbe suppressed a shudder as he clasped his hands behind his back, slowly drawing up to them. "None of you has anything to report, after months of silence?"  
There was a murmur among the students, and Crabbe felt his heart pace increasing rapidly the more the man–if he could be called one–drew nearer. He feared for a moment that Crabbe's body was prone to heart attacks, then wondered if the students' murmur was the right choice.

"I see." He focused his eyes on Crabbe's, and he found himself struggling to stand–a weight was pressing on his mind, clawing at it, trying to get in–  
And then it was gone.  
"Obviously you need to be punished for lack of information to report," Voldemort said, as though this was an apparent fact. Crabbe clenched his teeth, thankful for the mask. The red eyes flicked down the row. "Nott."  
Oh no, Crabbe thought. No, he can't–  
Then he clapped a hand over his thoughts, forcing them to other things, reminding himself forcefully that this man could hear stray emotions. He concentrated on putting everything of emotion into a box, sealing it with a spell, banishing it...  
"Yes, my lord," Nott managed, taking the smallest of stumbles forward.

"Crucio." He winced, and watched Nott collapse, horrified. "Why have you no information?" he demanded angrily, in a loud shriek. "You are hiding something!"  
The Death Eaters were standing close together in their circle. As Nott writhed in pain, she mindlessly rolled into some adult Death Eaters, who kicked her back, closer to the center. She was scratching at her flesh, at the tattoo on her forearm, trying to scrape it off through her robes. A sharp twig scraped her cheek, and blood welled up there. On his left side, Crabbe felt movement, and his eyes flicked to the side; behind his mask, Goyle was murmuring a spell. No one else seemed to have noticed, all watching the morbid show.

Meanwhile, Voldemort was growing bored of her silent screaming, and it was just then that Crabbe realized that what Goyle had done was silence her; how did the Dark Lord not notice this? But he flicked his wand, and Nott stopped trying to hurt herself, but stayed on the ground, shivering violently. "Get back in line," Voldemort ordered, kicking her in the side. She shakily stood, tripping back into the circle. "Now. Draco. Step forward."  
Unflinchingly, the called upon came forward. He seemed so much calmer than Nott had been, and Crabbe admired him for this, especially since he knew that for Lavender, this was amazing. "Yes, my lord?"  
"What of your Potions Master, the traitor? Have you nothing to say about him?"

Crabbe drew a sharp breath that thankfully wasn't very loud. There had been no rehearsed answer for this–he hoped desperately that Malfoy would say the right thing.  
"No, my lord," he said, bowing his head a little, a sign of shame. "Just that he has been less demanding in class lately. I had not known that he was a traitor, or I would have watched him more carefully."  
"Be more observing," Voldemort hissed, but waved the boy back into the circle. Crabbe breathed again, thankful that another of their number wouldn't need to suffer through the Unforgivables, at least for now.

What followed seemed to Crabbe like a routine meeting; the younger Death Eaters watched the processions silently, trying to concentrate on not slouching and taking in as much information as they could. Crabbe noted that Voldemort seemed to have not found out that anything out of the ordinary had happened at the castle.  
It was not until the end of the meeting that Voldemort turned back to the teenagers again, eyes flicking down the row. "Before our next meeting–" his eyes flashed dangerously–"I expect that you'll have something worthwhile to report. I want you to watch young Mister Potter, as well as the fool headmaster and the Potions Master. Bring me information and I will reward you dearly." His lip seemed to curl with that phrase, and he dismissed the circle. Together, all the Death Eaters bowed respect to the Dark Lord, and then left, all heading in different directions, some apparating right there. Crabbe waited until he was sure that the other younger Death Eaters had apparated, and then did so himself, right before Goyle.

"They're back," Harry said, suddenly, looking out across the grounds.  
Pansy, who'd drifted off a little, leaning on the castle wall, out of worry and exhaustion, stirred. "Are they all there?"  
"I can't tell," he replied, then, a moment later, "yes, they're all there."  
"Thank Merlin," Pansy breathed, setting off to meet them, Harry at her heels.


End file.
